«     VlNBOillO  X>    • 


'im 


"  10  Asvuan  JHi 


I     z 


r~~T 


\ 


\ 


o    THE  UttRAIIT  OF    o 


y 


\ 


Al«<Sri  JHi.  o 


Ail^AJAINI)  JHi    °. 


0    71" 


^11 


-     Vif,«OiilTD  lO    « 


S[jw.- 


\. 


/ 


THE  IffiRAItY  OF  e 


t  UNIVERSITY    o 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND 
THE  REVOLUTION 


BY 
MAURICE  G.  HINDUS 


NEW  YORK 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1920 


CoprRIQHT,   1920 
BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


TO  MY  MOTHER 

WHO  HAS  KEPT  FRESH  IN  ME 
THE  MEMORIES  OP  VUiLAQE  LIFE  IN  RUSSIA 


PREFACE 

The  Russian  Revolution  came  at  the  wrong  hour. 
It  should  have  come  before  or  after  the  war,  but  not 
in  the  midst  of  it.  While  the  war  lasted,  we  were  so 
passionately  engrossed  in  it,  that  we  were  not  pre- 
pared to  tolerate  anything  that  was  likely  to  inter- 
fere with  our  mihtary  success.  That  was  quite 
natural.  The  war  loomed  as  the  biggest  thing  in  om* 
life.  We  felt  that  everything  we  respected,  loved 
and  enjoyed  would  be  annihilated,  unless  we  smashed 
the  threatening  force.  As  long,  therefore,  as  the 
Russian  Revolution  appeared  to  us  to  be  a  gain  for 
our  cause, — as  it  had  in  the  early  days,  when  we 
imagined  that  it  was  essentially  a  revolt  against  the 
pro-Germain  oligarchy — we  sang  hymns  of  praise  to 
it.  But  when  it  became  apparent  that  the  Revolu- 
tion was  much  more  than  that,  that  it  was  a  rebellion 
against  the  entire  social  order  which  the  old  regime 
had  reared,  and  that  instead  of  strengthening,  it  had 
actually  weakened  Russia's  military  power,  we  grew 
suspicious  and  wroth.  And  as  time  progressed,  and 
the  internal  ferment  in  Russia  increased,  and  further 
sapped  her  mihtary  strength,  until  it  became  clearly 
evident  that  she  could  no  longer  contribute  sub- 


viii  PREFACE 

stantially,  if  at  all,  to  the  fighting  capacity  of  the 
AlUes,  many  of  us  grew  frantic  with  rage  and  de- 
nounced her  as  a  traitor  and  coward.  In  other  words, 
because  the  Russian  Revolution  came  at  a  time  when 
we  felt  that  our  highest  interests  were  at  stake, 
virtually  all  of  us  judged  Russia  not  only  m  the 
light  of  our  own  past,  our  own  environment,  our  own 
conceptions,  but  in  terms  of  our  own  inamediate 
needs.  Our  interpretation  of  Russia  was  subjective, 
and  that  was  an  imf ortunate  approach  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, unfortunate  for  us  and  still  more  for  Russia. 

Many  of  us  in  our  indignation  with  the  capers  of 
the  Revolution,  have  visited  our  wTath  upon  the 
leaders  of  the  movement,  and  have  blamed  them  for 
the  mishaps  that  have  befallen  the  once  mighty 
empire.  Such  an  attitude,  however  sincere,  will  not 
advance  our  understanding,  nor  enlarge  our  appre- 
ciation of  the  problem  in  Russia  to-day.  Leaders, 
of  course,  have  their  faihngs.  Yet  it  cannot  be  too 
often  nor  too  vigorously  emphasized  that  the  cause 
of  Russia's  calamities  hes  rooted,  not  purely  in  the 
stupidity  or  villainy  of  individuals,  but  funda- 
mentally in  the  infirmities,  which  centuries  of 
despotism  have  wrought  in  the  social  and  economic 
organization  of  the^ountry.'  Is  it  Bolshevism  that 
wrecked  Russia?  ur  is  it  wrecked  Russia  that  created 
Bolshevism?  If  we  wish  to  understand  the  spirit  of 
rebellion  that  has  seized  the  Russian  masses,  if  we 


PREFACE  k 

desire  to  help  discipline  the  outburst  of  riotous 
passion  and  convert  it  into  constructive  beneficent 
action,  we  must  first  search  for  its  real  cause,  partly 
in  the  whims  and  perversities  of  outstanding  leaders, 
but  fimdamentally  in  the  actual  fife  of  the  people, 
in  their  warped  and  vitiated  historical  development. 
During  a  Revolution,  when  laws  and  institution,  and 
rights  are  in  a  fluid  state,  it  is  the  basic  forces  pro- 
pelHng  the  movement  that  count;  it  is  the  masses  of 
liberated,  impassioned,  floundering,  humanity  who 
invest  the  Revolution  with  character  and  power. 
''It  should  be  the  aim,"  said  Spinoza,  "of  a  wise  man 
neither  to  mock,  nor  to  bewail,  nor  to  denounce  men 's 
actions,  but  to  understand  them."  It  should  be  our 
aim  to  understand  the  causes  and  motives  of  the 
actions  of  the  Russian  masses,  for  only  through  such 
understanding  shall  we  put  ourselves  in  a  position 
to  aid  them. 

Of  all  the  elements  that  make  up  the  Russian 
masses,  the  peasant  is  by  far  the  most  important. 
Actually  and  potentially  the  peasant  is  the  mightiest 
force  in  Russian  life  and,  therefore,  in  the  Russian 
Revolution,  and  bids  fair  to  become  the  supreme 
power  in  the  future  of  the  nation.  He  constitutes 
the  vast  bulk  of  the  population,  about  eighty  per  cent 
of  the  total.  The  soldier  and  the  proletariat,  though 
propelled  in  their  revolutionary  crusade  by  motives 
largely  grown  out  of  their  particular  social  environ- 


X  PREFACE 

ment,  have,  nevertheless,  very  much  in  common  with 
the  mouzhik  in  the  struggle  for  self-assertiveness. 
Most  of  the  soldiers  are  peasants,  and  they  are  as 
vitally  interested  in  peasant  reforms,  especially  in 
the  distribution  of  the  land,  as  are  their  folks  at 
home.  And  nearly  all  of  the  proletariat  have 
originally  sprung  from  the  peasantry.  Many  of  them 
through  years  of  sojourn  in  the  city  have  lost  all 
contact  with  the  village,  and  have  developed  a  class 
individuahty  of  their  own.  Man}^  others,  however, 
have  remained  linked  to  the  village  and  all  its  prob- 
lems, either  through  blood-ties  or  through  the 
continued  possession  of  a  parcel  of  land.  Tens  of 
thousands  of  Russian  mouzhiks  flock  to  the  cities 
only  for  winters,  and  in  spring  as  soon  as  the  ground 
thaws  out,  they  rush  back  to  their  homes  to  work  the 
land. 

Russia  is,  indeed,  primarily  a  peasant  country, 
not  only  in  its  economic  structure,  but  in  the  qual- 
ities of  its  native  genius.  The  peasant  has  cast  his 
somber  shadow  over  everything  in  Russian  life.  All 
forms  of  art,  music,  hterature,  dancing  and  painting, 
have  drawn  their  richest  sustenance  from  him.  All 
great  social  and  political  movements  have  centered 
round  him.  The  Decembrists,  Slavophiles,  West- 
erners, Populists  and  Social-Revolutionaries,  have 
clustered  round  his  fortunes  and  misfortunes.  Even 
the  orthodox  Social-Democrats  with  their  theoret- 


PREFACE  xi 

ical  exaltation  of  the  proletariat,  have  had  to  bow 
to  the  peasant  to  attract  his  support.  In  1905 
twenty-four  political  parties,  beginning  with  the 
reactionary  Fatherland  Union  and  ending  with  the 
extreme  Maximalists,  flaunted  a  bait  to  the  mouzhik 
to  attract  his  following,  for  they  all  knew  that  their 
success  depended  upon  his  support  more  than  upon 
an;y^hing  else.  Indeed,  without  the  following  of  the 
unkempt  mouzhik  no  political  party  in  Russia  ever 
can  hope  to  attain  national  prominence,  and  no 
government  ever  can  expect  to  maintain  itself  in 
power  long.  Although  not  the  direct  driving  force 
of  the  Revolution — the  city  proletariat  has  assumed 
that  role  for  the  present — he  is,  nevertheless,  the 
power  that  pushes  on,  or  else  beats  back  this  force. 
He  is,  in  other  words,  the  court  of  last  resort,  the 
final  decisive  element  in  the  Revolution. 

And  yet  in  our  discussion  of  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion, we  have  exhibited  a  tendency  to  ignore  the 
peasant.  Many  of  us  seem  to  be  under  the  impres- 
sion that  the  peasant  is  ignorant,  docile,  easily  sWayed 
into  following  this  or  that  party,  easily  manipulated 
by  clever  leaders  for  this  or  that  purpose,  a  man 
without  a  will  and  a  goal  of  his  own.  This  impression 
is  utterly  and  thoroughly  false.  True,  the  peasant 
is  ignorant — more  than  half  can  neither  read  nor 
write — but  ignorance  does  not  imply  stupidity,  no 
more  than  a  college  training  implies  intelligence. 


xii  PREFACE 

On  the  coDtrary,  in  his  own  way  the  peasant  is  highly 
intelligent.  And  not  only  has  he  a  will  and  a  goal 
of  his  own,  he  has  fought  desperately  for  years,  for 
generations,  for  the  realization  of  this  goal.  To 
understand  the  peasant,  his  turn  of  mind,  his  aims, 
his  wishes,  his  ideals,  the  part  he  has  played  in  the 
revolutionary  movement,  and  the  part  he  is  destined 
to  play  in  the  future  of  Russia,  jt  is,,necessary  to 
become  acquainted  with  his  world,  his  economic 
condition,  his^^olitical^tatiis,  his  educationaToppOf^' 
tunities,  his  social  environment,  for  itls  in  these  that 
his'stsrte.ofmind  has  been  molded,  and  his  revolution- 
ary aspiration^  jreapedr — 

To  understand  these  is  to  understand  the  peasant, 
and  to  understand  the  peasant  is  to  understand  the 
destiny  of  the  Revolution. 

It  is  with  the  aim  of  helping  the  English-speaking 
reader  to  gain  such  an  understanding,  that  this  book 
has  been  written. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  take  the  opportunity  to 
express  my  thanks  to  A.  Yarmolinsky,  chief  of  the 
Slavonic  Division  of  the  New  York  Library,  for  his 
many  valuable  suggestions  and  criticisms,  and  to 
Lionel  Danforth  Edie,  Associate  Professor  of  History 
at  Colgate  College,  for  his  constant  counsel  and  en- 
couragement. 

M.  G.  Hindus. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTERS  PAQE3 

I.  The  Peasant  at  Home 3 

II.  Under  Serfdom 27 

III.  Education  in  the  Russian  Village 40 

IV.  The  Legal  and  Social  Position  op  the  Peasant.  61 
V.  The  Peasant  as  a  Farmer 73 

VI.  Taxation 93 

VII.  Home  Industries  and  Wage-Labor 108 

VIII.  The  Other  Alternatives 124 

./  IX.  The  Ideology  of  the  Peasant  i 

(1)  Political 138 

X.  The  Ideology  of  the  Peasant  (continued) 

(2)  Social 153 

XL  Battling  for  Land 179 

XII.  The  Cadets  and  the  Peasants 203 

\/XIII,  The  Social-Revolutionaries  and  the  Peasant.  .   235 

XIV.  The  Bolsheviki  and  the  Peasant 251 

^'  XV.  The  Gist  of  the  Peasant  Problem 278 

XVI.  The  Co-operative  Movement  and  the  Peasant.  .  291 
y  XVII.  Bolshevism,  the  American  Democracy  and  the 

Peasant 308 

BpLIOGRAPHY 325 


FOREWORD 

Anyone  who  has  been  among  the  Russian  peasants 
knows  that  no  people  on  earth  has  richer  possibihties. 
As  I  went  about  Russia  in  1917  and  noted  how  me- 
thodically these  peasants  had  been  shut  away  from 
light  and  hope,  I  came  to  feel  that  the  regime  of 
Tsars  and  nobles  was  an  emanation  from  the  Bottom- 
less Pit.  Here  is  a  book,  honest,  sober  and  wise, 
which  describes  the  plight  to  which  one-twelfth  of 
the  human  race  had  been  brought.  It  is  fortunate 
that  at  a  time  when  our  newspapers  exaggerate  the 
blunders  and  confusion  of  the  new  order,  Mr.  Hindus 
faithfully  depicts  for  us  the  lot  of  the  peasants  under 
the  super-greed  and  super-ferocity  of  the  old  regime. 

This  book  is  so  concrete,  so  careful  of  fact,  so  im- 
partial, and  so  free  from  propaganda,  that  I  am  sure 
that,  a  hundred  years  hence,  historians  of  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution  will  quote  it  with  respect. 

Edward  Alsworth  Ross. 


"Revolutions  don't  spring  up  over  night; 
revolutions  gather  through  the  ages; 

revolutions  come  from  the  long  suppression  of  the  human  spirit; 
revolutions  come  because  men  know  that  they  have  rights, 
and  that  they  have  been  disregarded." 

WOODROW  WILSON. 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE 
REVOLUTION 


THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND 
THE  REVOLUTION 

CHAPTER   I 

THE    PEASANT    AT    HOME 

What  a  painfully  picturesque  sight  a  Russian 
village  is!  As  you  approach  it  in  a  straw-filled 
springless,  jolting  cart  over  a  crusty  or  sludgy  road, 
winding  beneath  a  leaden  sky,  your  eyes  wander  over 
grain  fields,  now  luxurious  in  growth,  now  desolate, 
almost  bare;  some  mouzhik  lazy,  or  ailing  was  late 
with  his  sowing  or  else  botched  his  work.  Here  a 
stunted  grove  peeps  out  from  the  valley,  there  barren 
hillocks,  a  withered  meadow,  a  spacious  pasture,  with 
scrawny  cows  stirring  lazily  amidst  riotous  weeds; 
yonder  a  patch  of  wild  bushes,  where  potatoes  or  rye 
should  have  grown;  close  by  a  swamp,  which,  if 
drained,  would  have  yielded  bountiful  root-crops; 
over  all  hover  a  spaciousness,  a  silence,  a  gloom; 
dense  flocks  of  crows  blacken  earth  and  air;  and  far 
away,  merging  into  the  hazy  sky,  is  a  dark-bluish 
wall  of  forest,  standing  like  a  sentinel  over  the  droop- 
ing village  and  its  huddle  of  humanity ! 


4    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

You  draw  close  to  the  village.  A  small  moss- 
covered  shrine  nestling  in  the  shade  of  stately  pines 
or  birch,  greets  your  eyes.  It  is  capped  by  a  small 
cross,  and  is  kept  open  in  smnmer;  inside  you  see  a 
row  of  bright-colored  crucifixes  hanging  in  somber 
frames  all  around  the  walls,  their  backs  wrapped 
neatly  in  snow-white  Hnen.  In  front  of  the  shrine, 
rooted  in  the  ground  is  a  tall  massive  cross  with  a 
wooden  statuette  of  Jesus,  crucified,  nailed  at  the 
top.  If  you  are  orthodox  you  remove  your  hat, 
bow  low,  and  make  the  sign  of  the  cross  over  your 
body.  Often  you  can  see  wandering  beggars  or 
pilgrims  with  heavy  packs  on  their  backs  kneeling 
in  an  attitude  of  devotion  before  this  shrine. 

You  come  to  the  gateway.  On  holidays  and  after 
dark  the  big  ponderous  gate  is  closed.  But  you  do 
not  always  have  to  bestir  yourself  out  of  the  wagon 
to  open  it.  If  the  weather  is  fine,  a  motley  crowd  of 
boys  and  girls  loiter  around,  and  upon  seeing  you 
approach,  all  of  them  to  the  littlest  tot,  hurl  them- 
selves upon  the  gate,  and  push  it  open  amidst  a 
chorus  of  wild  yells,  and  then  they  run  after  you, 
hands  stretched  out  and  shouting  at  the  top  of  their 
voices,  the  dogs  in  the  vicinity  eagerly  joining  in  the 
chase,  which  is  kept  up,  until  you  throw  something 
to  the  crowd;  anything  will  satisfy  them — a  piece  of 
white  bread,  a  lump  of  sugar,  a  few  matches,  a  ginger 
cake,  a  small  coin — anything  at  all.    They  all  dive 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  5 

after  it  like  fish  after  a  crumb,  and  they  pull  and 
push,  and  abuse  each  other  vehemently  in  the  mad 
scramble  after  the  precious  reward. 

You  enter  the  village.  Two  rows  of  somber  log- 
huts  built  on  the  open  ground,  with  small  windows 
and  thatched  roofs,  in  places  moss-covered  and 
grown  over  with  weeds;  a  straggling  street  sometimes 
with  no  beginning,  no  middle,  and  no  end — something 
that  they  call  a  street  in  Boston — in  winter  a  deep  bed 
of  snow,  in  spring  and  summer  a  deep  bed  of  dust  or 
river  of  mud;  no  pavements,  no  sidewalks,  excepting 
here  and  there  a  shapeless  plank  on  stones  or  a  heap 
of  brush  stumped  down;  no  lawns,  no  flower  beds; 
no  lamp-posts  and,  therefore,  no  lights  at  night;  in 
front  of  each  house  in  the  street  an  open  well  with  a 
massive  sweep,  and  not  far  away  a  big  manure  pile, 
the  dung  after  a  rain  oozing  into  the  well;  hens,  ducks, 
geese,  pigs,  loiter  eveiy^'here,  and  crowds  of  children, 
dirty-faced,  half-naked,  with  lumps  of  bread  and 
cold  potatoes  in  their  hands,  playing  boisterously. 
Such  is  the  appearance  of  a  village  in  Great  and 
White  Russia! 

Even  less  inviting  is  the  interior  of  a  peasant's  hut. 
There  is  no  door  from  the  street.  To  enter  it  you 
must  go  into  the  com-tyard,  which  is  always  thickly 
strewn  with  rags,  egg-shells,  bones,  garbage,  and  all 
manner  of  filth,  for  the  peasant  housewife  dumps  her 
refuse  into  the  yard.    In  spring  and  fall  and  at  other 


6    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

times  after  a  heavy  rain,  the  yard,  especially  if  it  is  on 
low  ground,  turns  into  a  puddle  of  slush.  You  wade 
through  it  in  a  big  pair  of  boots  or  else  barefooted 
with  your  trousers  rolled  up  to  your  knees.  You 
come  to  the  door,  press  down  a  projected  latch  and  it 
opens.  It  is  a  single  door  and  so  low,  that  if  you  are 
above  average  height,  you  bow  yoiu*  head,  else  you 
bump  into  the  projecting  beam.  The  first  room  you 
enter  is  the  seny — a  sort  of  vestibule  with  no  windows 
and  no  light,  excepting  what  dribbles  in  through  the 
crannies  in  the  walls  or  the  thatch  overhead.  In  this 
room  certain  agricultural  and  house  implements  are 
kept  and  provisions  are  stored.  It  is  always  cold  and 
damp,  and  smells  of  rotting  wood  and  musty  bread. 

In  back  of  the  seny  is  a  small  compartment  with  a 
little  window.  This  is  the  clothes-press  and  the 
dressing  parlor  and  the  bread-box,  all  in  one.  In  the 
corner  you  perhaps  see  a  trunk  covered  with  a  white 
linen  cloth.  In  it  is  the  most  sacred  possession  of  the 
older  peasants — their  burial  clothes.  Of  course,  they 
make  these  while  they  are  alive  from  the  best  mate- 
rial they  can  afford.  Now  and  then  the  housewife,  if 
she  is  somewhat  advanced  in  years,  will  steal  into  this 
compartment,  take  out  her  burial  garments,  try  them 
on,  and  examine  herself  in  a  mirror,  made  from  a 
piece  of  glass  with  a  black  cloth  on  the  back — just  to 
see  how  beautiful  she  will  look,  when  she  is  dead ! 

In  front  of  the  seny  are  the  U\'ing  quarters,  usually 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  7 

only  one  room,  fair-sized,  dark,  damp,  fetid,  smoky, 
with  bare  walls,  a  floor  of  earth  or  rough  boards, — 
always,  excepting  at  Easter  or  Christmas,  in  sad  need 
of  scrubbing.  In  the  place  of  honor  in  the  corner, 
directly  beneath  the  ikons,  stands  a  big  bare  poHshed 
table;  near  or  around  it,  crude  backless  benches, 
often  also  a  few  chairs,  and  heavy  planks  around 
the  walls.  Then  there  is  the  polati,  a  wide  spacious 
platform,  resting  against  the  back  wall,  which  serves 
as  a  sleeping  place.  There  is  no  mattress  on  it,  no 
pillow,  no  sheets,  no  blankets,  no  semblance  of  bed- 
ding, excepting  loose  straw  or  sacks  stuffed  with 
straw  and  covered  with  a  home- woven  hemp  cloth. 
When  bedtime  comes,  the  peasant  pulls  off  his  boots, 
if  he  has  any  on,  and  drops  on  the  polati,  usually  in 
his  clothes.  Of  night-shirts  he  has  not  begun  to 
dream  yet.  If  the  family  happens  to  be  very  large 
every  available  inch  of  space  on  the  polati  is  occupied. 
In  summer  the  congestion  is  greatly  relieved,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  young  people  sleep  outdoors.  The 
mother  usually  has  her  infant  beside  her  to  be  near 
and  nurse  it,  when  it  wakens  in  the  night,  and  it 
occasionally  happens  that  she  rolls  upon  it  in  her 
sleep,  and  chokes  it  to  death. 

There  are  not  many  windows  in  a  peasant  hut, 
perhaps  about  two  facing  the  street  and  two  facing 
the  courtyard.  They  are  very  small  in  size  and  drip 
constantly  with  steam  and  dirt.    If  a  pane  breaks, 


8    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

it  is  not  so  readily  replaced,  not  even  by  the  richer 
peasant,  because  the  glass  has  to  be  bought,  and  the 
mouzhik,  loathes  to  buy  things.  Not  that  he  is  by 
nature  a  miser,  only  money  is  such  a  precious  posses- 
sion, that  he  hates  to  part  with  it.  He  stuffs  up  the 
hole  in  the  window  with  rags,  flax,  hay,  or  boards  it 
up  altogether,  and  the  entire  summer  passes,  some- 
times together  with  a  good  portion  of  the  autumn, 
before  he  finally  steels  himself  to  the  expense  of  put- 
ting in  a  new  pane.  If  he  is  very  poor,  he  does  not 
replace  it  at  all.  In  fact,  many  a  jjoor  peasant  has  no 
glass  in  his  windows,  because  glass  is  expensive.  Of 
course,  it  is  unsanitary  to  shut  out  the  light  from  the 
house,  especially  when  there  is  so  precious  little  of  it 
at  best.  But  it  is  cheaper  to  use  flax,  rags  or  boards, 
than  to  buy  glass. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  peas- 
ant's hut,  is  the  oven,  a  big  brick  structure,  occasion- 
ally whitewashed,  but  usually  black  with  soot, 
sprawhng  clumsily  over  a  wide  space.  It  is  really  a 
marvelous  institution;  there  is  scarcely  anything  in 
the  world  to  compare  with  it  in  the  variety  of  pur- 
poses it  serves,  and  the  multitude  of  functions  it  per- 
forms. In  it,  of  course,  the  cooking  and  the  baking 
are  done,  and  the  laundiy  is  boiled.  In  it  the  family 
disinfecting  is  done.  In  it  the  peasant  takes  his  bath. 
If  he  has  no  regular  bath-house,  he  crawls  inside,  like  a 
snail  into  its  shell,  taking  with  him  a  bucketful  of  cold 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  9 

water  to  splash  over  his  head  now  and  then.  Waves 
of  fierce  heat  beat  upon  his  body  and  fairly  scorch  the 
flesh,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  mind  it — in  fact  the 
hotter  the  bricks,  the  more  he  enjoys  the  bath. 
Surely  gehenna  can  have  no  terrors  for  such  a  man. 
Accidents,  of  course,  happen.  A  man  with  a  weak 
heart  occasionally  succumbs  to  the  heat.  On  the 
other  hand  there  are  peasants  so  vigorous,  that  they 
leap  out  from  the  oven,  red  and  steaming  with  heat, 
run  outside  into  the  snow,  rub  themselves  with  it  and 
roll  around  like  an  animal.  Oh,  no,  they  do  not  catch 
cold !   They  seem  to  be  immune  from  it. 

But  to  return  to  the  oven.  The  top  of  it  is  a  brick 
platform,  very  wide,  spacious  and  warm.  There 
during  the  cold  weather  the  older  folks  sleep  at  night 
or  rest  during  the  day;  there  visitors  are  put  up  for 
the  night;  there  children  have  their  playground  dur- 
ing the  dreary  winter  months;  there  the  peasant  has 
his  hospital.  If  he  has  a  headache,  he  climbs  up  there 
to  cure  it;  if  he  has  a  stomach-ache  he  climbs  up  there 
and  stretches  out  on  the  hot  bricks;  if  he  has  diph- 
theria, typhoid,  pneumonia,  croup,  he  is  carried  up 
there  and  bundled  up  in  heavy  wraps. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  oven  or  rather  under  it,  in  the 
ground,  is  a  dug-out,  and  that  is  the  hen-house. 
There  the  hens  roost,  and  '^set"  and  lay  their  eggs, 
and  if  you  wish  to  get  the  eggs,  you  must  crawl  inside, 
face  down  and  flat,  and  wiggle  snake-like  over  to 


10    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

where  you  see  the  eggs.  There  is  no  other  way  of 
getting  out  the  eggs,  unless  you  rake  them  out  with  a 
stick  and  run  the  risk  of  smashing  them. 

This,  then,  is  the  interior  of  a  peasant's  hut.  In 
summer  with  doors  and  windows  open,  and  air  and 
wind  and  sunshine  streaming  in  abundantly,  and 
the  people  staying  out  in  the  field  all  day,  and  only 
the  older  ones  sleeping  inside,  the  peasant  home, 
however  wretchedly  furnished  and  cared  for,  is  at 
least  tolerably  clean.  It  is  different  in  winter,  when 
it  is  so  congested  that  it  cannot  be  kept  clean,  for, 
be  it  remembered,  that  though  the  mouzhik  may  be 
so  unlearned  as  not  to  know  the  multipUcation  table, 
he  on  the  whole  quite  thoroughly  approves  of  it.  He 
multipUes  rather  rapidly.  Large  famiHes  are  the 
rule  and  not  the  exception.  And  then  there  are  the 
grandparents  and  perhaps  some  non-relative,  an 
adopted  orphan  or  an  illegitimate  child,  all  living 
in  the  same  room  which  is  kitchen,  bedroom,  dining 
hall,  reception  parlor  and  during  the  cold  months 
also  calf-pen,  pig-sty  and  lamb  stall ! 

And  then  there  is  the  smoke  in  the  house,  blue 
and  dense  and  penetrating.  It  comes  first  from  the 
chips  which  hght  the  house  during  the  dark  hours. 
Not  all  peasants  have  lamps,  and  of  those  that  have, 
many  find  oil  expensive  on  occasions,  and  so  they 
burn  wooden  chips,  long  and  slender  and  dry.  The 
light,  of  course,  is  dim  and  shaky — a.  painful  strain 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  11 

on  the  eyes — and  the  chips  have  to  be  replaced  about 
every  ten  minutes,  they  burn  so  fast;  but  worst  of  all 
is  the  smoke  they  give  off,  clouds  hanging  in  heavy 
blue  wreaths  all  over  the  room.  Another  source  of 
smoke  in  the  house  is  the  fire-place.  Not  every 
peasant  has  a  chimney  in  the  oven,  and  whenever  a 
new  supply  of  fuel  is  thrust  inside,  the  smoke  has 
no  outlet  to  the  open  air  and  puffs  its  way  into  the 
room.  But  even  when  there  is  a  chimney  attached 
to  the  oven,  a  squall  of  wind  will  occasionally  drive 
back  a  cloud  of  smoke,  or  defective  flue  arrangements 
will  not  provide  a  proper  outlet  for  it,  and  it  pours 
into  the  house.  But  why,  the  reader  will  say,  does 
not  the  mouzhik  open  the  windows  and  doors  and  let 
the  smoke  out  and  the  fresh  air  in?  That  would  be 
hygienic,  and  the  peasant  might  be  induced  to  do  it, 
if  he  were  provided  with  a  magic  screen  which  would 
separate  the  smoke  from  the  warmth,  let  the  one  out 
and  keep  the  other  in!  In  the  absence  of  such  a 
screen  if  the  doors  and  windows  are  thrown  open, 
the  house  becomes  chilled,  and  whenever  it  comes 
to  a  choice  between  smoke  and  warmth  on  the  one 
hand  and  cold  on  the  other,  the  mouzhik  always 
prefers  the  first.  It  is  much  cheaper.  No  wonder 
disease  of  the  eyes  and  bUndness  are  so  widely  prev- 
alent in  the  Russian  village. 

The  dress  of  the  peasant  is  simple  enough.   Except- 
ing in  the  central,  so-called  commercial  provinces, 


12    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

clothes  are  very  largely  made  from  homespun 
material,  flax,  hemp  or  wool.  Underclothes  are 
practically  unknown  even  among  the  well-to-do. 
Trousers  and  a  smock  made  from  linen  or  wool,  with 
a  belt  at  the  v/aist,  constitute  the  chief  articles  of 
apparel  for  men.  The  young  fellows,  especially  those 
that  work  in  the  city  in  winter,  wear  on  Sundays 
and  holidays  factory-made  clothes  of  modern,  that 
is,  German  style.  In  winter  the  peasant  wears  a 
svitka — a  long  home-made  woolen  cloak,  a  sheep- 
skin coat,  both  of  the  simplest  pattern  and  of  the 
same  style  for  men  and  women.  Many  a  family  have 
only  one  sheepskin  coat;  only  the  older  members 
wear  it  by  turns. 

Woman's  dress  is  hkewise  simple — a  linen  shirt,  a 
bodice  and  skirt  made  from  fustian  or  calico  and  often 
gorgeously  embroidered,  and  a  large  kerchief  of 
variegated  colors  done  into  the  shape  of  a  hat  with 
long  fringes  hanging  loose  all  around  the  head.  Girls 
are  very  fond  of  gay  colors,  especially  red,  and  if  they 
can  afford  it,  they  love  to  buy  beautiful  ribbons  for 
their  hair. 

As  to  foot-gear  on  work  days  in  summer,  men  and 
women  go  barefooted,  as  a  rule.  On  holidays  they 
wear  long  coarse  boots,  if  they  can  afford  them,  which 
many  cannot,  especially  in  the  non-commercial 
provinces.  There  bast-shoes,  which  were  common 
in  western  Europe  during  the  middle  ages,  are  still 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  13 

in  everyday  use.  They  are  made  from  the  bark  of 
certain  trees,  long  narrow  strips,  plaited  together 
into  a  spacious  sandal  and  tied  to  the  leg  with  a 
leather  strap  or  an  ordinary  stout  string.  Moisture 
easily  seeps  into  the  sandal  and  wets  the  feet,  thus 
inviting  colds  and  rheumatism.  Felts  are  not  un- 
known, but  rubbers  are  quite  rare.  Only  the  young 
men  who  have  spent  a  considerable  time  in  the  city 
are  likely  to  wear  them,  and  such  is  their  pride  in 
them,  that  they  often  put  them  on  in  the  hottest  day 
in  summer.  Children  go  mostly  barefooted  the  year 
around,  and  when  they  are  sent  on  errands  in  winter 
they  slip  on  father's  or  mother's  boots.  Women,  as 
a  rule,  wear  stockings,  which  they  themselves  knit. 
Very  few  men  wear  socks.  Instead  they  wrap  around 
their  feet  linen  or  woolen  bandages. 

Not  many  peasants  can  boast  of  more  than  two 
changes  of  clothes.  Some  consider  themselves  for- 
tunate, if  they  have  only  one  that  looks  respect- 
able. Fashion  matters  little,  and  has  only  begun  to 
change  in  the  villages  that  lie  close  to  the  cities.  In 
the  remote  rural  districts  the  same  blouses,  same 
bodices,  same  skirts,  same  headgear,  are  worn  from 
generation  to  generation.  Owing  to  the  high  tariffs 
on  cotton  and  cotton  goods  even  the  cheapest  cloth 
was  too  high-priced  for  the  peasant,  and  he  could 
not  afford  to  make  a  new  smock  or  new  shirt  as  often 
as  he  wished.    Usually  he  wears  a  garment  as  long  as 


14    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

it  will  cling  to  the  body.  If  there  is  a  rip  or  rent  in 
it,  he  patches  and  repatches  it,  again  and  again,  until 
it  is  almost  all  made  over — from  patches.  Only  when 
the  material  refuses  any  longer  to  be  held  together 
by  the  toughest  thread,  when  it  has  actually  been 
torn  to  shreds  or  has  rotted,  is  it  cast  off,  and  then  it 
is  not  discarded,  but  is  put  to  some  other  uses. 

Possessing  only  one  or  two  suits  of  clothes  and 
wearing  them  day  after  day,  with  no  underwear  on 
the  body  and  constantly  engaging  in  heavy  menial 
work,  it  is  not  particularly  easy  for  either  a  man  or 
woman  to  maintain  an  especially  clean  bodily  con- 
dition. That  is  why  the  peasant  pays  regular  visits 
to  the  hanya — the  bath  house.  In  some  sections 
every  family  has  its  own  hanya.  It  is  a  small  hovel 
in  back  of  the  house,  with  a  big  stove  in  it  and  a 
stone  hearth;  the  stones  are  heated  and  water  is 
poured  upon  them,  giving  off  a  dense  hot  vapor. 
Opposite  the  stove  is  a  spacious  staircase  platform, 
the  top  board  almost  touching  the  ceiling.  The 
bather  mounts  the  platform  as  high  as  he  can  stand 
the  heat,  prostrates  himself  on  it,  and  whips  him- 
self vigorously  all  over  the  body  with  a  venick — a 
big  bundle  of  rods  with  leaves  on  them,  and  then 
pours  cold  water  over  his  head.  If  a  peasant  has  no 
hanya  of  his  own,  he  takes  his  bath  in  the  oven  in  the 
manner  already  described,  or  else  he  journeys  to 
the  town  nearby,  where  there  is  a  bath-house.     A 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  15 

bath  he  must  take  regularl}^,  usually  every  Saturday, 
In  summer  outdoor  bathing  is  quite  popular,  where- 
ever  there  is  a  stream  near  the  village.  Bathing  suits 
are  as  rare  as  crown  jewels.  Neither  the  men  nor  the 
women  wear  them,  or  think  it  necessary  to  wear  them, 
though  the  bathing  place  be  near  the  bridge  in  full 
view  of  travelers. 

The  food  of  the  peasant  is  likewise  simple.  By 
force  of  circumstances  he  is  essentially  a  vegetarian. 
In  the  first  place  the  Greek  Orthodox  rehgion  pro- 
hibits the  use  of  all  animal  foods,  including  egg  and 
milk  products,  but  excepting  fish,  on  Wednesdays 
and  Fridays  and  at  various  lengthy  intervals  during 
the  year.  In  the  second  place,  meat  is  rather  ex- 
pensive; the  hog  or  steer  which  the  peasant  raises, 
he  is  likely  to  sell  in  order  to  obtain  the  money  with 
which  to  pay  his  taxes  and  debts.  Even  the  well-to- 
do  mouzhik,  partakes  of  meat  only  on  Sundays  and 
holidays  and  at  other  special  occasions,  never  every 
day.  The  chief  articles  of  food  are  bread,  made  out 
of  the  whole  grain  of  rye,  and  potatoes,  also  the 
various  vegetables  in  season,  cucumbers,  beets, 
onions,  turnips,  radishes,  garlic,  and  various  milk 
products. 

Native  Americans  have  a  strong  prejudice  against 
certain  foods  which  are  quite  popular  among  the 
Russian  peasants.  There  is  garUc  for  example! 
There  are  many  things  an  American  would  do  before 


16    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

he  ever  would  taste  of  garlic.  He  does  not  particu- 
larly relish  its  fragrance.  But  a  peasant  will  go  out 
to  the  field  to  work,  and  take  with  him  for  his  lunch  a 
big  lump  of  rye  bread  and  a  few  pieces  of  garhc  and 
make  a  heavy  meal  of  them.  He  rubs  the  garhc  on 
the  hard  part  of  the  bread,  puts  salt  over  it  and  en- 
joys it  immensely.  Then  there  are  the  green  onion 
tops.  The  American  cook  deposits  them  in  the  gar- 
bage can  together  with  eggshells  and  banana  peel- 
ings. The  Russian  peasant  eats  them  as  long  as  they 
last.  He  eats  them  raw,  he  eats  them  boiled,  he  eats 
them  with  bread  and  potatoes,  he  eats  them  without 
bread  and  potatoes.  He  never  tires  of  them,  as  the 
American  never  tires  of  his  pie.  Often  he  makes  a 
dehcious  dish  out  of  onion  tops.  He  cuts  them  into 
small  pieces  in  a  wooden  bowl,  beats  them  thor- 
oughly with  the  bottom  of  a  wooden  cup,  until  they 
turn  into  a  thick  liquid,  and  then  pours  rich  sweet 
cream  over  it.  Eaten  in  such  manner  with  an  abun- 
dance of  cream  and  fresh  bread,  well-buttered,  it  is  a 
wonderfully  delicious  dish. 

The  most  common  dishes  at  the  peasant  table  are 
shtchui — a  vegetable  soup,  and  kasha — a  sort  of  gruel 
or  mush  made  from  buckwheat  meal  or  some  other 
cereal.  If  these  dishes  are  properly  cooked  and  fla- 
vored, they  are  as  delicious  and  nourishing  as  any- 
thing ever  prepared  in  any  kitchen.  The  shtchui 
made  from  cabbage  with  a  generous  slice  of  beef 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  17 

boiled  in  it,  and  enriched  with  a  big  cupful  of  cream, 
will  waken  hunger  in  the  most  dyspeptic  Russian — 
be  he  mouzhik  or  grand  duke.  And  the  kasha 
steamed  and  baked  and  served  hot  with  a  generous 
layer  of  golden  butter  and  a  cupful  of  fresh  sweet 
milk  poured  over  it,  is  a  dish  for  kings. 

Only  in  one  respect  is  the  food  of  the  American 
farmer  similar  to  that  of  the  Russian  peasant.  Both 
seem  to  be  enamoured  of  griddle  cakes,  excepting  that 
the  peasant  has  not  the  maple  syrup  and  the  fried 
bacon,  and  the  ham  and  eggs,  to  go  with  them.  He 
flavors  his  '^flapjacks"  with  some  cheap  vegetable 
oil,  or  else  eats  them  plain. 

Wheat  flour  products  the  peasant  seldom  uses. 
They  are  entirely  too  expensive.  His  own  wheat  he 
sells.  Therefore  white  bread  is  a  luxm-y.  The  same 
is  true  of  sugar,  which  is  very  sparingly  used.  When 
a  peasant  drinks  tea,  he  seldom  drops  the  sugar  into 
the  glass.  Instead  he  bites  of  it  from  the  lump,  and 
lets  the  tea  pass  over  it  thus  making  it  last  longer; 
sometimes  he  rolls  his  sugar  under  his  tongue,  so  as  to 
make  it  last  still  longer.  Because  white  bread  and 
sugar  are  such  luxuries,  it  is  only  natural,  that  a  boy 
who  wants  to  be  particularly  kind  to  his  sweetheart, 
should  bring  her  instead  of  a  box  of  chocolates  an 
abaranok — a  wheat  roll  the  size  and  shape  of  a 
doughnut,  and  a  lump  of  sugar. 

The  peasant  is  very  fond  of  tea,  and  yet  it  can 


18    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

hardly  be  said  that  tea  is  the  universal  beverage  in 
the  Russian  village.  In  some  provinces  in  the  com- 
mercial section,  nearly  every  peasant  family  has  a 
samovar,  and  they  make  tea  every  day,  and  drink  it 
during  or  after  their  meals.  But  in  many  provinces 
the  peasant  has  no  samovar  of  his  own;  there  are 
villages  in  which  there  is  not  a  single  samovar.  In 
these  regions  the  peasant  drinks  tea  only  when  he 
goes  to  town  on  Sundays,  holidays,  and  at  fair-time. 

There  are,  however,  other  drinks  quite  common  in 
the  Russian  village.  There  is  kvas,  made  from  stale 
bread  soaked  in  water.  It  has  a  grayish  color  and  is 
somewhat  bitter.  There  is  also  med,  made  from 
honey  and  water.  In  places  where  there  are  birch 
forests,  the  peasant  taps  the  trees  in  spring.  He  does 
not  convert  the  sap  into  syrup  or  sugar,  as  does  the 
American  farmer  with  maple  sap.  Instead  he  stores 
it  in  open  barrels  in  a  barn  or  cellar,  and  when  it 
ferments,  he  eats  it  with  bread  or  drinks  it,  as  we  do 
soda  or  cider.  It  has  a  caustic  taste,  but  is  not  intox- 
icating. Coffee  is  practically  unknown  among  the 
peasants.  Of  cocoa  and  chocolate  most  of  them  have 
not  even  heard. 

The  feeding  of  babies  is  most  pitiful.  In  summer 
the  mother,  being  obliged  to  work  in  the  field,  cannot 
devote  herseK  to  the  care  of  her  infant.  She  cannot 
even  stop  now  and  then  to  nurse  it.  Artificial  baby 
food  preparations  which  are  in  such  common  use  in 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  19 

this  country,  are  unknown  in  the  Russian  village,  and 
if  they  were,  few  peasant  mothers  could  avail  them- 
selves of  them  because  of  the  expense.  And  so  the 
mother  feeds  the  infant  a  Zhvatchka, — she  chews 
up  a  mouthful  of  bread  or  potato,  empties  it  into  a 
piece  of  thin  cloth,  ties  it  into  a  nipple,  and  puts  it 
into  the  mouth  of  the  child  to  suck!  Or  else  she 
transfers  this  chewed  food  to  the  baby's  mouth  with 
her  finger. 

This,  then,  is  the  food  of  the  peasant — simple, 
coarse,  cheap,  dry  and  dreadfully  monotonous.  And 
yet  scarcely  a  year  passes  but  millions  of  mouzhiks 
have  not  even  enough  rye  bread  and  potatoes.  Fam- 
ine in  Russia  is  about  as  periodic  as  it  is  in  China, 
though  China  is  only  about  half  the  size  of  Russia, 
and  has  twice  as  large  a  population. 

Because  of  such  hving  conditions  disease  is  ram- 
pant in  the  Russian  village,  and  the  death  rate  is 
appallingly  high,  more  than  twice  that  of  the  United 
States.  Smallpox,  typhoid,  croup,  diphtheria,  dys- 
entery, invade  the  Russian  village  with  cruel  reg- 
ularity, and  exact  a  heavy  toll  from  the  peasant 
population,  especially  from  children.  In  European 
Russia  in  1912  out  of  every  one  thousand  infants 
about  one-third  died  before  they  reached  their  first 
birthday.  In  the  same  year  according  to  the  official 
registration  figures,  about  eighty-two  per  cent  of  the 
population  suffered  from  some  ailment  or  other.    The 


20    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

following  table  of  contagious  diseases  alone  for  the 
year  1911  tells  its  own  story: 

Number  of  cases  Percentage  of  population 

European  Russia 15,949,265  13.23 

Baltic  Vistula  govts.. .  405,783  3 .  26 

Caucasus 1,577,457  13 .  11 

Siberia 835,803  9.69 

Central  Asia 537,704  5 .  30 

The  village,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  is  by  far  the 
heavier  sufferer  from  epidemics  and  disease  in  gen- 
eral, and  its  mortahty  is  higher  than  that  of  the  city. 
A  number  of  reasons  account  for  this  phenomenon. 
The  condition  of  the  peasant  home  is  filthier  than 
that  of  the  city  dweller.  Scarcity  of  food  is  more 
periodic,  and  sanitation  is  practically  non-existent; 
the  health  regulations  that  have  found  their  way  to 
the  statute  books  might  never  have  been  written,  as 
far  as  the  peasant  is  concerned.  He  ignores  them, 
whenever  he  can.  Besides,  physicians  in  the  village 
are  much  rarer  and  difficult  to  reach.  In  this  country 
there  is  one  physician  for  every  800  persons.  In 
European  Russia  in  1912,  there  was  one  physician 
for  every  13,000  inhabitants  in  the  cities  and  towns, 
and  only  one  for  every  21,900  in  the  country.  Only 
the  very  largest  villages  are  hkely  to  have  a  resident 
doctor.  As  a  rule  doctors  hve  in  towns  and  cities, 
where  they  have  a  fairly  prosperous  chentele,  and 
they  do  not  readily  come  to  the  village,  especially  if 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  21 

it  is  far  away,  and  the  caller  is  poor.  In  spring  when 
the  roads  are  rivers  of  slush  and  the  village  is  for  a 
time  cut  off  entirely  from  the  outside  world,  it  is,  of 
course,  altogether  impossible  to  bring  a  doctor,  and 
spring  is  the  season  when  disease  is  quite  prevalent  in 
rural  Russia.  Often  it  is  even  difficult  to  bring  a 
feldsher — a  sort  of  trained  nurse — to  the  bedside  of 
the  patient.  But  at  best  a  feldsher  is  a  feldsher.  He 
administers  something,  and  often  the  patient  recovers 
despite  that  something. 

There  are  many  occasions  of  sorrow  in  the  Russian 
village,  far  too  many,  and  there  is  nothing  more 
heart-rending  than  a  peasant  in  grief,  especially  a 
peasant  woman.  It  is  a  dark  day  in  the  home  in 
autumn,  when  the  boy  has  to  leave  for  a  long  period 
of  military  service  in  some  far-away  camp.  It  is  a 
painful  hour  for  the  mother,  when  her  newly-wed 
daughter  parts  from  home;  it  is  a  bitter  trial  to  a 
mouzhik,  when  his  crops  bum  up  or  rot  in  the  fields; 
or  when  a  fire,  flood,  or  storm,  destroys  his  little 
home.  Yet  nothing,  it  seems  to  me,  fills  him  with  so 
much  terror,  as  the  coming  of  an  epidemic.  In  the 
presence  of  its  fierce  destructiveness  he  feels  as  utterly 
alone  and  abandoned,  as  must  have  felt  those  Russian 
soldiers  in  Galicia,  whien  they  faced  German  steel  and 
explosives  with  their  bare  hands.  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  winter  when  an  epidemic  assailed  our  village. 
Our   ignorant   loving   mothers   flitted   about   from 


22    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

house  to  house,  stunned,  panic-stricken,  searching, 
crying,  pleading  for  advice  and  succor,  which  no  one 
could  offer.  And  how  they  prostrated  themselves 
before  the  crucifixes,  those  poor  simple  souls,  and 
prayed,  and  begged  the  Lord,  so  touchingly  and  ten- 
derly, to  spare  their  children  from  the  deadly  scourge ! 

Nor  is  disease  the  only  misfortune  that  ravages 
the  peasant.  Fires  are  another,  which  are  even  more 
periodic  than  plagues,  or  epidemics.  Now  it  is  a 
burning  coal  from  the  chip  that  hghts  the  house, 
which  falling  into  a  bundle  of  straw  or  a  heap  of 
kindhng  wood,  starts  a  conflagration;  now  it  is 
tongues  of  flame  leaping  out  of  the  cracked  chimney 
into  the  dry,  brittle,  and  loosely  packed  thatch;  now 
it  is  a  burst  of  hghtning;  now  it  is  a  boy  steahng 
tobacco  and  matches  from  father  and  sneaking  ofT 
into  the  haymow  to  experiment  with  "smokes";  now 
it  is  an  ugly  demon  visiting  vengeance  upon  an  enemy 
by  applying  the  torch  to  his  roof.  Many  are  the 
causes.  And  once  the  blaze  breaks  out,  it  sweeps  on, 
especially  if  the  wind  is  favorable,  from  roof  to  roof, 
on  and  on,  devouring  the  entire  village, — houses, 
barns,  horses,  cows,  sheep. 

The  mouzhik,  of  course,  does  not  stand  by  idly 
with  folded  arms  and  watch  the  uproarious  blaze 
devour  his  home — his  most  precious  possession.  He 
fights  the  fire,  but  he  is  helpless  with  his  crude  axe 
and  big  wooden  pails.    Few  villages  in  Russia  can 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  23 

boast  of  a  hose  or  pump  and  other  fire-fighting 
weapons.  With  his  home  gone  and  perhaps  his 
bams  and  part  or  all  of  his  stock,  too,  there  is  nothing 
left  for  him  to  do  but  to  go  begging,  unless  he  happens 
to  have  some  coins  tucked  away  somewhere  in  a  jar. 
The  insurance  he  collects,  if  he  collects  any  at  all,  is 
quite  insignificant.  So  he  hitches  up  a  horse,  or  else 
goes  on  foot  wdth  his  wife  and  often  with  the  children, 
and  wanders  from  village  to  village,  marches  from 
house  to  house,  stretches  out  his  hand  and  says  he  is  a 
pogorely — burned  up.  The  housewife  understands, 
and  gives  him  something  with  a  blessing — a  measure 
of  rye,  a  bundle  of  flax,  a  big  slice  of  bread,  or  a  sheaf 
of  straw.  In  such  manner  the  unfortunate  man 
gathers  a  httle  personal  property,  and  is  enabled  to 
rebuild  his  lowly  hut  and  start  life  anew. 

It  is  a  hard  Ufe,  indeed,  the  mouzhik  is  living,  but 
particularly  painful  is  the  lot  of  the  peasant  woman. 
When  a  girl  is  only  five  years  old,  she  is  aheady 
harnessed  to  the  daily  tasks  of  the  house.  She  pares 
potatoes,  helps  with  the  cleaning  of  the  flax,  or  looks 
after  the  baby.  In  sunmier  when  mother  is  in  the 
field,  she  is  left  in  charge  of  the  younger  brother  or 
sister  all  day.  As  she  grows  older  her  duties  increase. 
She  begins  to  sweep  the  house,  spin  flax,  weave  linen, 
carry  in  an  armful  of  wood,  a  pail  of  water.  When 
she  is  fifteen  or  sixteen,  she  is  grown-up  already.  She 
is  out  in  the  field  all  day  with  her  father  and  mother, 


24    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

hoeing,  reaping,  pitching  hay,  loading  grain.  At 
seventeen  or  eighteen  she  is  married.  She  moves  to 
her  husband's  home,  or  rather  to  her  husband's 
father's  house,  for  usually  the  young  married  peasant 
has  no  dwelling  place  of  his  own  while  his  father  is 
still  alive.  It  is  a  new  place  to  her,  a  strange  place. 
Perhaps  it  is  far  away  from  home,  and  she  has  never 
been  away  before,  so,  of  course,  she  feels  lonely  and 
cries  a  good  deal  in  the  first  days  of  her  married  hfe. 
Still,  if  the  people  in  her  husband's  family  are  kind 
and  considerate,  and  respectful,  she  soon  becomes 
accustomed  to  her  new  environment,  and  feels  more 
or  less  content.  But  if  she  is  not  treated  with  decency 
and  forbearance,  if  father-in-law  sulks,  and  mother- 
in-law  scolds,  and  sister-in-law  mocks,  and  brother- 
in-law  insults,  as  is  often  the  case,  she  has  no  peace 
of  mind,  and  not  even  the  tenderness  and  love  of  her 
husband  can  make  her  feel  happy.  Of  course,  she 
works  all  the  time,  hke  the  other  members  of  the 
family,  and  she  is  glad  to  work,  to  do  her  best,  even 
if  she  is  assigned  the  heaviest  and  most  sordid  tasks, 
but  if  she  is  at  all  sensitive,  and  she  usually  is,  she 
cannot  bear  the  fault-finding  and  the  gibing,  and  the 
nagging  now  by  this,  now  by  that  member  of  the 
family.  But — there  is  no  escape  from  it,  she  cannot 
go  home  to  mother;  if  she  did,  she  would  be  brought 
back  with  a  rope  round  her  neck,  if  necessary. 

Then  comes  the  period  of  motherhood, — the  first 


THE  PEASANT  AT  HOME  25 

child,  and  the  second,  and  the  third,  and  the  fourth, — 
they  come  regularly,  about  once  a  year, — scarcely 
is  one  weaned,  before  the  other  comes,  and  to  her 
other  multitudinous  tasks  and  cares,  new  ones  are 
added.  She  has  no  rest  now,  either  on  Sunday  or 
hohday,  and  it  is  seldom  that  she  enjoys  a  full  night's 
sleep.  Now  this,  now  that  child  is  sick,  now  this  one, 
now  that  one,  wakes  up  crying,  and  she  has  to  tend 
it.  And  in  the  morning  she  feels  so  tired,  so  weary 
that  she  can  hardly  go  to  work,  but  she  has  to  milk 
the  cows,  feed  the  hogs,  cook  the  meals,  bake  the 
bread,  and  if  it  is  summer,  go  to  the  field  and  toil 
away  until  dusk.  No  wonder  that  the  peasant 
woman  ages  and  withers  so  rapidly  after  she  is 
married.  At  thirty  or  thirty-five  she  looks  fifty, 
with  a  shrivelled  face,  sunken  eyes,  trembling  hands. 
Perhaps  it  is  because  the  peasant  woman  is  so  much 
of  a  worker  that  ^he  men  in  the  villages  never 
muttered  a  word  of  protest  against  the  introduction 
of  equal  suffrage  after  the  Czar  was  overthrown. 

Such  is  the  life  of  the  mouzhik.  Surely  he  deserves 
a  better  lot.  A  worse  can  hardly  be  imagined.  And 
no  one  intimately  acquainted  with  his  character  will 
lay  his  plight  to  his  stupidity,  viciousness,  or  to  his 
disdain  for  a  more  cheerful  mode  of  existence.  The 
peasant  is  slow  of  movement,  but  he  surely  is  not 
lazy.  He,  indeed,  does  the  heaviest  work  of  the 
nation,  and  produces  most  of  its  wealth,  as  we  shall 


26    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

see  in  subsequent  chapters.  He  is  clumsy,  but,  as  a 
rule,  he  is  not  shiftless.  And,  of  coiu'se,  he  is  not 
extravagant.  On  the  contrary  he  is  quite  economical, 
often  to  a  point  of  being  miserly.  Bad  habits  he 
has,  many  of  them.  He  is  after  all  pitifully  human. 
On  the  whole,  however,  he  is  honest,  good-hearted, 
intelHgent,  industrious. 

The  cause  of  his  appallingly  low  state  of  civiliza- 
tion we  shall  find  in  the  outward  circumstances  of 
his  life,  in  conditions  which  he  had  not  fashioned,  and 
which  he  was  powerless  to  resist. 


CHAPTER  II 
UNDER   SERFDOM 

In  olden  times  the  Russian  peasant  was  among  the 
freest  of  men  in  Europe.  He  lived  in  his  commune, 
governed  himself,  owned  his  land,  all  famihes  related 
to  each  other  usually  working  together,  and  together 
enjoying  the  fruits  of  their  labor.  He  was  a  free 
citizen,  politically  entirely  independent. 

The  frequency  of  wars,  however,  seriously  under- 
mined his  economic  stabihty,  and  he  had  to  apply  to 
his  richer  neighbor  for  help.  Now  he  needed  seed, 
now  cattle,  now  implements,  now  something  else, 
and  he  borrowed  or  purchased  these  from  the  land- 
lord, usually  obHgating  himself  to  pay  back  in  labor. 
Occasionally  instead  of  borrowing  he  preferred  to 
move  to  the  landlord's  estate  and  work  a  plot  of  land 
on  shares,  the  landlord  furnishing  all  necessary  tools 
and  animal  power.  Or  if  he  was  totally  destitute  and 
heavily  in  debt,  he  sold  his  services  to  the  landlord 
in  advance  for  a  period  of  years  or  even  for  life,  thus 
becoming  a  voluntary  serf.  In  such  manner  the 
peasant  became  more  or  less  dependent  econom- 
ically upon  the  landlord,  and  while  this  depend- 
ence did  not  at  first  directly  deprive  him  of  civil  and 
political  liberties,  it  tended,  nevertheless,  to  shift 


28    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

the  preponderance  of  authority  to  the  landlord  class. 
The  coming  of  the  Mongols  and  the  constant  in- 
vasions of  foreign  tribes  only  further  impoverished 
the  peasant,  and  made  him  dependent  upon  his 
wealthy  neighbor  to  an  ever-increasing  extent.  What 
made  things  worse  was  the  fact  that  free  land  was  be- 
coming a  haunting  memory.  The  rulers  were  giving 
it  away  to  the  church,  the  monasteries  and  the 
knightly  classes.  By  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury about  two-thirds  of  the  arable  land  of  the  Mos- 
cow Kingdom  was  already  in  the  possession  of  the 
privileged  classes  and  the  clergy.  There  was  nothing 
left  for  the  poor  peasant  to  do  but  to  borrow  cap- 
ital from  those  who  had  it,  or  to  hire  out  to  the 
landed  proprietor,  or  to  mortgage  himself  for  years 
in  advance.  He  did  not  particularly  relish  this 
condition  of  servitude,  whether  temporary  or  per- 
manent. He  had  happy  memories  of  days  of  in- 
dependence, when  he  had  all  the  land  he  cared  to 
till,  and  when  he  could  easily  come  into  possession  of 
new  land  by  simply  migrating  to  an  unsettled  region, 
that  had  not  yet  been  transferred  as  a  reward  to  some 
man  in  the  government  service.  He  chafed  under 
the  yoke  of  voluntary  serfdom.  And  when  his  lot 
became  particularly  oppressive,  he  unceremoni- 
ously packed  up  his  belongings,  forgot  his  contract 
and  ran  away.  Labor  was  scarce,  and  landlords 
vied  with  each  other  to  entice  workmen  away  from 


UNDER  SERFDOM  29 

one  another  by  offering  better  terms  and  lowering  the 
tax  obhgations,  so  there  never  was  any  difficulty  for 
a  fugitive  peasant  to  find  a  place  to  work. 

The  greater  was  the  destitution  of  the  peasant, 
the  larger  was  the  number  of  those  who  attached 
themselves  to  manors,  the  larger  was  the  number  of 
deserters.  At  first  the  peasant  wandered  from  place 
to  place  alone  with  his  family,  then  in  companies, 
then  in  multitudes,  ever  swelling  in  size.  Officials  and 
landlords  grew  alarmed,  the  first  because  with  a  large 
portion  of  the  population  in  a  state  of  constant  migra- 
tion, it  was  difficult  to  collect  taxes,  and  the  second, 
because  the  constant  uncertain  ebb  and  flow  of  labor, 
was  ruinous  to  the  productivity  of  their  lands. 
The  smaller  landlords  were  the  heaviest  sufferers. 
They  could  not  compete  with  their  richer  neigh- 
bors in  luring  labor  away  one  from  the  other.  A 
clamorous  demand  arose  to  forbid  the  willful  mi- 
gration of  the  peasant,  and  in  response  to  this 
clamor  the  all-powerful  Boris  Godunov  issued 
in  1597  a  series  of  laws  curtailing  the  right  of  free 
migration.  Change  of  places  of  labor  or  abode 
were  permitted  by  these  laws  only  once  a  year, 
on  the  26th  of  November  or  St.  George's  day, 
and  if  a  peasant  escaped  from  the  manor  at  any  other 
time  the  landlord  was  given  the  right  to  bring  him 
back  by  force,  and  this  right  held  valid  for  five  years 
from  the  day  of  the  fugitive's  departure. 


30    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  new  law  lessened  but  did  not  check  the  stream 
of  migration,  which  continued  to  be  an  evil  to  the 
government  and  the  landed  nobles.  In  subsequent 
years  the  migration  laws  were  further  restricted,  and 
in  1644  when  the  Oolozhenie,  or  new  code  of  laws,  was 
promulgated,  a  provision  was  inserted  forbidding 
landlords  to  receive  fugitive  peasants,  and  the  time 
limit  beyond  which  a  landlord  lost  the  right  to  reclaim 
a  peasant  who  had  escaped  from  his  manor,  was  abol- 
ished. Serfdom  or  bondage  to  the  soil  was  now  an 
accomplished  fact. 

The  number  of  serfs  was  rapidly  increased  during 
the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  and  the  eighteenth 
centuries.  ''Czars  and  emperors,"  says  Maxime 
Kovalevsky,  one  of  the  most  noted  Russian  histo- 
rians, "endowed  the  members  of  the  official  classes 
with  land  in  disregard  often  of  their  previous  occupa- 
tion by  free  communities,  the  members  of  which  were 
forced  to  become  the  serfs  of  the  persons  who  re- 
ceived the  grant."  Katherine  the  second  was  partic- 
ularly energetic  in  the  extension  of  serfdom.  She 
introduced  it  in  Ukraine,  where  previously  no  feudal 
class  distinctions  had  existed,  into  the  Don  region, 
and  into  the  southern  provinces  known  as  New  Rus- 
sia. Her  lovers  and  trusted  servants  she  lavishly 
rewarded  with  numerous  ''souls" — peasant-serfs. 
Upon  the  thirty-six  conspirators  who  murdered  her 
half-witted  husband,  Peter  the  third,  she  bestowed 


UNDER  SERFDOM  31 

sumptuous  gifts  in  money,  land  and  eighteen  thou- 
sand serfs.  To  six  of  her  lovers  she  gave,  in  addition 
to  stupendous  subsidies  and  annuities,  one  hundred 
thousand  "souls."  During  her  reign  of  thirty-four 
years  she  yoked  into  serfdom  eight  hundred  thousand 
peasants,  and  her  successor,  Paul,  within  a  period  of 
only  four  years,  added  six  hundred  thousand  more ! 

At  first  the  serf  did  not  suffer  from  any  particular 
personal  repressions.  He  was  merely  a  life-long 
hired  man,  enjoying  all  the  privileges  and  comforts  of 
a  hired  man.  But  as  time  passed  the  landlords  on  the 
private  estates  and  the  officials  on  the  government 
estates  grew  more  arbitrary  and  more  violent.  They 
curtailed  the  serf's  liberties  with  ever-increasing  as- 
siduity, until  they  reduced  him  to  the  position  of  a 
slave,  though,  when  serfdom  was  first  introduced, 
there  was  no  thought  in  the  mind  of  the  initiators  of 
the  act,  that  it  would  ultimately  lead  to  personal 
slavery.  They  only  desired  to  provide  a  sure  way  of 
collecting  taxes,  and  to  protect  the  landlords  against 
the  inconveniences  and  losses  occasioned  by  vagrant 
labor.  But  once  the  peasant  was  chained  to  the  soil 
for  life,  it  was  easy  for  the  landlords  to  come  to  regard 
him  as  their  personal  possession,  existing  solely  for 
the  promotion  of  their  welfare,  and,  therefore,  to  be 
disposed  of  as  they  pleased. 

It  was  only  natural  that  laws  should  be  passed 
depriving  the  peasant  of  all  civil  and  personal  rights. 


32    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

In  1741  he  was  deprived  of  the  right  to  take  his  oath 
of  allegiance,  so  that  he  would  have  no  occasion  to 
think  of  himself  as  being  in  any  way  connected  with 
the  state,  and,  therefore,  entitled  to  some  considera- 
tion from  those  constituting  the  authority  of  the 
state.  In  1742  he  was  denied  the  right  any  longer  to 
enUst  in  the  army.  Many  a  serf  found  life  on  the 
manor  so  intolerable,  that  he  preferred  to  be  under 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  army  officials,  despite  the 
cruelties  and  hardships  of  army  life,  rather  than 
to  be  subjected  to  the  will  of  the  landlord,  and 
since  that  resulted  in  the  loss  of  ''souls"  to  the 
latter,  a  law  was  passed  prohibiting  the  peasant 
from  seeking  enlistment  in  the  army,  and  in  case  he 
violated  this  law,  he  was  to  be  flogged  or  exiled  for 
life-long  hard  labor  to  Siberia.  Peter  the  Great  fur- 
ther forbade  a  serf  to  sue  a  landlord,  and  in  1767 
Katherme  the  second  prohibited  him  under  the  pen- 
alty of  corporal  punishment  and  life-long  expulsion 
to  Siberia  from  lodging  a  complaint  against  his 
master. 

The  peasant  lost  not  only  all  civil  and  political, 
but  also  all  personal  hmnan  rights.  The  landlords 
could  do  anything  they  pleased  with  him.  He  was 
their  property,  which  they  could  sell,  pawn,  auction 
off,  exchange  for  a  cow,  a  dog,  a  gun,  or  anything 
else.  Landlords  could  separate  father  from  mother, 
children  from  parents.     They  could  pick  husbands 


UNDER  SERFDOM  33 

for  their  girl-serfs,  and  wives  for  their  man-serfs.  If 
they  took  the  hfe  of  a  peasant,  the  law  practically 
ignored  the  act.  If  one  of  them  killed  a  serf  that  be- 
longed to  another,  the  owner  of  the  dead  man  pro- 
ceeded to  the  estate  of  the  murderer,  picked  out  the 
best  serf  there  with  his  wife  and  children,  bundled 
them  into  a  cart,  took  them  home,  and  nothing 
more  was  said  of  the  murder.  If  they  were  ever 
sentenced  to  some  form  of  disagreeable  punish- 
ment, they  sent  the  serf  to  receive  the  sentence. 
If  they  ever  waged  an  armed  feud  against  a  neigh- 
bor, the  serf  did  the  fighting.  If  they  were  ever 
summoned  to  state  service  and  failed  to  report 
at  the  appointed  time,  their  serfs  were  held  as 
hostages  until  they  responded  to  the  official  call. 
The  landlords'  will  was  the  only  law  that  reigned  over 
the  peasant,  and  woe  to  the  transgressors  of  this  law ! 
The  landlords  knew  no  pity,  and  whenever  punish- 
ment was  pronounced  upon  the  delinquent  serf,  he 
was  expected  calmly  and  meekly  to  submit  to  it.  If 
he  was  condemned  to  a  flogging,  he  had  to  remove 
his  own  clothes,  and  lie  down,  while  two  of  his  fellow- 
serfs  sat  at  his  head,  two  others  at  his  feet,  and  one 
or  two  others  swished  the  birch  rod  over  his  body. 

Lest  it  be  thought  that  it  was  only  in  the  early 
stages  of  serfdom  that  such  treatment  was  accorded 
to  the  serf,  and  that  with  the  advance  of  years  and 
the  humanizing  tendencies  of  civilization,  the  land- 


34    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

lords  abated  in  their  cruelty,  I  shall  quote  from  the 
words  of  an  eye-witness,  a  descendant  of  a  highly 
aristocratic  family  in  Russia,  whose  father  was  a 
prosperous  landlord.  He  describes  the  treatment 
of  the  serfs  in  his  own  home  a  few  years  before  the 
emancipation.  The  following  is  from  Peter  Kropot- 
kin's  '^ Memoirs  of  a  Revolutionist." 

"Ulyana,  the  housekeeper,  stands  in  the  passage 
leading  to  father's  room  and  crosses  herself;  she  dares 
neither  to  advance  nor  to  retreat.  At  last  after  hav- 
ing recited  a  prayer  she  enters  the  room  and  reports 
in  a  hardly  audible  voice,  that  the  store  of  tea  is  at  an 
end,  that  there  are  only  twenty  pounds  of  sugar  left, 
and  that  the  other  provisions  will  soon  be  exhausted. 

"'Thieves,  robbers!'  shouts  my  father.  'And  you 
are  in  league  with  them !'  his  voice  thunders  through- 
out the  house.  Our  step-mother  leaves  Ulyana  to 
face  the  storm.  But  father  cries:  'Frol,  call  the 
princess!  Where  is  she?"  And  when  she  enters  he 
receives  her  with  the  same  reproaches. 

'''You  also  in  league  with  the  progeny  of  Ham; 
you  are  standing  up  for  them, '  and  so  on  for  half  an 
hour  or  more. 

"Then  he  commences  to  verify  the  accounts.  At 
the  same  time  he  thinks  about  the  hay.  Frol  is 
sent  to  weigh  what  is  left  of  that,  and  our  step-mother 
is  sent  to  be  present  during  the  weighing,  while  father 
calculates  how  much  of  it  ought  to  be  in  the  barn. 


UNDER  SERFDOM  35 

A  considerable  quantity  of  hay  appears  to  be  missing, 
and  Ulyana  cannot  account  for  several  pounds  of 
such  and  such  provisions.  Father's  voice  becomes 
more  and  more  menacing.  Ulyana  is  trembling  but 
it  is  the  coachman  who  now  enters  the  room  and  is 
stormed  at  by  his  master.  Father  springs  at  him, 
strikes  him,  but  he  keeps  repeating,  'Your  Highness 
must  have  made  a  mistake. ' 

''Father  repeats  his  calculations  and  this  time  it 
appears  that  there  is  more  hay  in  the  barn  than  there 
ought  to  be.  The  shouting  continues;  he  now  re- 
proaches the  coachman  with  not  having  given  the 
horses  their  daily  ration  in  full;  but  the  coachman 
calls  on  all  the  saints  to  witness  that  he  gave  the  ani- 
mals their  due  and  Frol  invokes  the  Virgin  to  confirm 
the  coachman's  appeal. 

"But  father  will  not  be  appeased.  He  calls  on 
Makar  the  piano-tuner  and  sub-butler  and  reminds 
him  of  all  his  present  sins.  He  was  drunk  last  week, 
and  must  have  been  drunk  yesterday,  for  he  broke 
half  a  dozen  plates.  In  fact  the  breaking  of  the 
plates  was  the  real  cause  of  all  this  disturbance;  our 
step-mother  had  reported  that  fact  to  father  in  the 
morning,  and  that  was  why  Ulyana  was  received 
with  more  scolding  than  was  usually  the  case,  why 
the  verification  of  the  hay  was  undertaken,  and  why 
father  continues  to  shout  that  this  progeny  of  Ham 
deserves  all  the  punishment  on  earth. 


36    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

"On  a  sudden  there  is  a  lull  in  the  storm.  My 
father  takes  his  seat  at  the  table  and  writes  a  note. 
'Take  Makar  with  this  note  to  the  police  station 
and  let  a  hundred  lashes  with  the  birch-rod  be  given 
to  him. ' 

'^  Terror  and  absolute  muteness  reign  in  the  house. 

''The  clock  strikes  four,  and  we  all  go  down  to 
dinner;  but  no  one  has  any  appetite,  and  the  soup 
remains  in  the  plates  untouched.  We  are  ten  at 
table  and  behind  each  of  us  a  violinist  and  trom- 
bone player  stands  with  a  clean  plate  in  his  left  hand, 
but  Makar  is  not  among  them. 

'"Where  is  Makar?'  our  step-mother  asks,  'Call 
him  in.' 

"Makar  docs  not  appear  and  the  order  is  repeated. 
He  enters  at  last  pale,  with  a  distorted  face,  shamed, 
his  eyes  cast  down.  Father  looks  into  his  plate, 
while  our  step-mother  seeing  that  no  one  has  touched 
the  soup  tries  to  encourage  us. 

"'Don't  you  find,  children,'  she  says,  'that  the 
soup  is  dehcious?'  Tears  suffocate  me  and  imme- 
diately after  dinner  is  over  I  run  out,  catch  Makar 
in  a  dark  passage  and  try  to  kiss  his  hand;  but  he 
tears  it  away  and  says,  either  as  a  reproach  or  as  a 
question, '  Let  me  alone — you,  you,  too,  when  you  are 
grown  up,  will  you  not  be  just  the  same?' 

"'No,  no,  never!' 

"Yet  father  was  not  the  worst  of  landowners. 


UNDER  SERFDOM  37 

On  the  contrary  the  servants  and  the  peasants  con- 
sidered him  one  of  the  best.  What  we  saw  in  our 
house  was  going  on  everywhere,  often  in  a  much  more 
cruel  form.  The  flogging  of  the  serfs  was  a  regular 
part  of  the  duties  of  the  poHce  and  the  fire  brigade." 
These  were  the  things  Kropotkin  saw  in  his  own 
house.  Much  worse  things,  he  writes,  occurred  on 
other  estates.  He  heard  ''of  men  and  women  torn 
from  their  famiUes  and  their  villages  and  sold  or  lost 
in  gambling,  or  exchanged  for  a  couple  of  hunting 
dogs,  and  then  transported  to  some  remote  part  of 
Russia  for  the  sake  of  creating  a  new  estate;  of 
children  taken  from  their  parents  and  sold  to  cruel 
or  dissolute  masters;  of  floggings  in  the  stable  which 
occurred  every  day  with  unheard  of  cruelty;  of  a 
girl  who  found  her  only  salvation  in  drowning  her- 
self; of  an  old  man  who  had  grown  gray-haired  in 
his  master's  service  and  at  last  hanged  himself  under 
his  master's  window;  of  revolts  of  serfs  which  were 
suppressed  by  Nicholas  first's  generals  by  flogging 
to  death  each  tenth  or  fifth  man  taken  from  the 
ranks,  and  by  laying  waste  villages  whose  inhabit- 
ants went  begging  for  bread  in  the  neighboring 
provinces.  As  to  the  poverty  which  I  saw  during 
our  journeys  in  certain  villages,  especially  in  those 
which  belonged  to  the  imperial  family,  no  words 
would  be  adequate  to  describe  the  misery  to  readers 
who  have  not  seen  it. " 


38    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Arbitrariness,  cruelty,  disregard  for  human  sensi- 
bilities, callousness  to  human  woe — this  was  the 
attitude  of  most  landlords  toward  the  serfs  until 
the  very  day  of  the  emancipation.  No  wonder  that 
Turgenev,  Gogol,  Grigorovitch,  Chemishevsky  and 
other  literary  men  felt  ashamed  of  their  country 
for  its  toleration  of  this  form  of  human  bondage. 
Their  descriptions  of  serf-life  with  all  its  accompany- 
ing ills  and  horrors,  the  degradation  and  corruption 
it  wrought  in  master  as  well  as  in  serf,  and  their 
eloquent  pleas  in  behalf  of  the  peasant,  helped 
immeasurably  to  rouse  the  conscience  of  intelligent 
Russians,  and  to  spur  them  into  an  insistent  demand 
for  the  abolition  of  the  evil  institution. 

In  1861  the  serfs  were  freed,  because  as  Alexander 
the  second  had  expressed  himself  once  at  an  as- 
sembly of  landlords,  '4t  is  better  that  this  should 
be  done  from  the  top  than  to  wait  until  it  is  ef- 
fected from  below, "  and  also  because  official  Russia 
had  learned  during  the  Crimean  war,  that  serfdom 
was  the  clay  feet  of  the  Russian  giant,  that  with  the 
peasant  chained  to  the  big  estates  and  industries 
neglected,  transportation  lines  undeveloped,  Russia 
was  doomed  to  a  position  of  inferiority. 

Thus  the  peasant  was  freed  from  serfdom.  But 
the  emancipation  act  could  not  give  to  him  what 
he  had  lost  in  social  and  cultural  development 
during   t^vo  and  a  quarter  centuries  of  bondage, 


UNDER  SERFDOM  39 

nor  could  it  wipe  out  the  effects  of  such  a  protracted 
period  of  subjection  and  stagnation. 

Still  he  was  industrious  and  strong,  inured  to 
hardships,  and  he  had  numerous  friends  who  were 
burning  with  zeal  to  help  him  in  his  new  Hfe  and 
to  retrieve  him  from  his  mental  sterility.  Given 
the  right  of  citizenship,  of  freedom  of  association 
with  others,  the  opportunity  to  attend  school,  the 
peasant  would  have  progressed  rapidly  in  his  social 
development,  for  whatever  else  he  may  be,  he  is 
not  stupid,  and  he  learns  quickly.  Yet  neither 
the  landlords,  nor  the  officials  wished  the  peasant 
to  become  cultivated.  They  lifted  the  yoke  of 
personal  slavery  from  him,  because  they  clearly 
saw  that  its  perpetuation  would  bring  about  their 
own  downfall.  But  they  were  determined  to  keep 
him  isolated  and  to  hold  him  in  subjection. 


CHAPTER  III 
EDUCATION 

Winter.  The  interior  of  a  peasant  hut;  windows 
shut  tight;  an  open  fire  in  the  oven;  the  air  blue  with 
smoke;  in  the  corner  the  housewife  and  aides  busy 
at  their  work  washing,  scrubbing,  cooking;  on  the 
top  of  the  oven  the  children  playing,  screaming, 
fighting;  the  air  damp,  stuffy,  fetid;  not  a  particu- 
larly inviting  place  to  live  in,  still  less  to  study  in. 
Yet  in  many  Russian  yillages  in  the  absence  of  a 
separate  school-house,  recitations,  such  as  they 
are,  are  conducted  in  these  hovels,  in  the  homes 
of  the  pupils. 

You  watch  such  a  school  in  session.  Two  tables 
standing  in  a  row  over  the  entire  length  of  the  room 
with  benches  on  each  side;  the  pupils,  all  boys,  sit 
close  together,  in  shabby  attire,  unkempt,  some  with 
faces  and  hands  unwashed,  nearly  all  with  hair  long 
and  uncombed ;  some  barefooted,  others  in  lapti,  and 
still  others  in  father's  old  boots.  All  seem  busy  at 
different  tasks;  some  bent  low  over  slates  scrawling 
laboriously  and  slowly  counting  their  strokes;  others 
with  books  in  hands  reciting  to  themselves  assigned 
lessons;  still  others  wrestling  audibly  with  problems 
of  addition  or  subtraction.    And  in  the  corner  is  the 


EDUCATION  41 

teacher  now  calling  on  this  pupil,  now  on  that  to  ap- 
pear before  him  and  recite  his  lesson  in  this  or  that 
subject.  There  is  a  constant  loud  buzzing  and  mur- 
muring, as  of  people  at  a  fair;  no  order,  no  discipline, 
no  system;  no  division  of  gi-ades,  no  organized 
courses,  scarcely  any  text-books,  no  recess-periods, 
excepting  at  mealtime. 

We  had  such  a  school  in  our  village,  a  community 
of  about  150  famihes,  and  there  were  three  villages  in 
the  neighborhood,  in  which  there  were  no  schools  at 
all,  and  no  effort  was  made  to  provide  any  form  of 
instruction  for  the  children.  Our  school,  as  was  the 
case  with  the  others  of  the  same  type  in  Russia,  was 
in  session  for  only  about  four  or  five  months  in  win- 
ter, every  day,  excepting  Sundays  and  holidays,  from 
morning  until  evening.  It  was  supported  entirely  by 
our  peasants,  and  was  supervised,  or  rather  was 
supposed  to  be  supervised,  by  the  parish  church.  The 
teacher  was  a  peasant,  largely  a  self-taught  man.  He 
could  read  and  write  Russian,  not  too  fluently;  he 
knew  Slavonic,  the  psalter,  the  multiphcation  table, 
the  four  fundamental  operations  of  aritlmietic,  the 
church  songs  and  nothing  else, — no  geography,  no 
history,  no  natural  science,  no  fractions  even.  Know- 
ing so  Httle  himself,  it  can  easily  be  imagined  how 
much  he  could  impart  to  his  pupils.  But  then  he  was 
paid  only  fifteen  or  twenty  roubles  a  season  and  his 
board. 


42    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

This,  however,  was  not  the  only  school,  which  the 
children  of  our  village  could  attend.  Fifteen  miles 
away  was  another,  the  parish  school,  much  more 
modern,  located  in  a  building  of  its  own,  a  spacious 
whitewashed  structure  with  small  windows,  a  big 
yard  in  front  for  a  playground  and  a  river  in  the 
back  for  skating  and  other  winter  sports.  The  in- 
terior was  a  large  room,  very  untidy,  with  portraits 
of  the  Czar  and  Czarina  and  ikons  on  the  wall,  and 
equipped  with  long  tables  and  benches.  There  were 
usually  two  teachers  there,  both  of  clerical  training; 
the  courses  of  study  were  more  or  less  systematized, 
but  as  we  shall  see  later,  very  httle  real  enhghtenment 
was  imparted  to  the  pupils  in  the  parish  school,  so 
httle  that  a  large  percentage  of  its  graduates  a  few 
years  after  the  completion  of  their  course,  fell  back 
into  a  state  of  ilUteracy.  And  besides,  the  parish 
school  was  always  overcrowded.  There  was  nowhere 
nearly  enough  space  for  all  the  applicants  in  the 
villages  within  its  jurisdiction.  Only  very  few  boys 
from  our  village  attended  it. 

The  best  primary  school  in  Russia  was,  of  course, 
the  zemstvo  school.  In  many  districts  it  was  a  new 
brick  building,  with  large  windows;  the  class  room 
was  spacious,  Hght,  airy,  clean;  transoms  were  al- 
ways open,  even  on  coldest  days;  the  walls  were  hung 
with  photographs  of  authors,  maps,  blackboards;  the 
desks  had  inclined  tops,  and  were  supphed  with  ink- 


EDUCATION  4S 

wells;  the  teacher  had  all  the  marks  of  a  "modern," 
clean-shaved,  neatly-dressed,  in  short  coat,  and 
trousers  on  outside  of  boots,  often  wearing  a  collar 
and  tie,  or  else  a  blouse,  and  with  a  handkerchief 
instead  of  the  sleeve  of  his  coat,  to  wipe  his  nose  with. 
In  equipment,  in  methods  of  teaching,  in  courses  of 
study,  in  general  aim  and  in  practical  achievements, 
the  zemstvo  schools  were  far  superior  to  any  other, 
even  to  the  ministerial  schools,  which  the  government 
in  the  last  years  of  its  existence,  had  begun  to  build  on 
an  extensive  scale,  chiefly  in  opposition  and  as  an 
antidote  to  the  zemstvo  schools.  But  there  were  not 
enough  zemstvo  schools  to  accommodate  all  those 
desirous  of  attending  them,  and  they  were  so  henamed 
about  by  a  multitude  of  restrictions,  that  their  edu- 
cational value  was  seriously  impaired. 

We  shall,  however,  best  understand  the  tendencies 
and  influences  of  the  schools  in  the  Russian  village, 
by  surveying  briefly  their  origin  and  growth  from  the 
earUest  times  to  the  present  day. 

Education  in  Russia  has  followed  a  slow  course. 
Prior  to  the  coming  of  Peter  the  Great  there  were  no 
regular  schools  in  Russia,  imless  we  count  as  such  the 
desultory  efforts  of  the  clergy  to  conduct  classes  for 
youths  desirous  of  dedicating  themselves  to  the  serv- 
ices of  the  church.  As  a  rule  outside  of  the  clergy 
instruction  whether  in  rehgious  or  secular  subjects 
was  a  monopoly  of  private  tutors,  who  taught  in  the 


44    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

homes  of  their  pupils,  children  of  wealthy  families. 
The  range  of  knowledge  of  these  teachers  was  quite 
limited.  Exact  sciences  they  scarcely  studied.  They 
knew  subtraction  and  addition,  and  now  and  then 
they  dabbled  into  the  mysteries  of  multiplication 
and  division,  but  with  little  success,  so  the  chroni- 
clers report.  Fractions  completely  puzzled  them. 
They  could  draw  certain  geometric  figures  or  rather 
copy  them  as  a  child  copies  diagrams  without  under- 
standing their  meaning.  All  they  knew  of  geography 
was  that  the  world  rested  on  the  back  of  four  whales. 
Medicine  they  eschewed  entirely,  content  to  let 
foreigners  monopolize  its  study  and  practice.  Until 
the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  then 
existing  azbukovnik,  a  sort  of  encyclopedic  dic- 
tionary of  universal  knowledge,;'regarded  music,  geog- 
raphy, astronomy  and  even  arithmetic  as  sinful 
subjects.  Such  was  the  dread  of  the  rulers  of  scien- 
tific learning  that  in  1676  the  nobleman  Matveyev,  in 
whose  possession  was  discovered  a  text-book  of 
algebra  for  the  instruction  of  his  son,  was  accused  of 
dealing  with  evil  spirits  by  means  of  those  mysterious 
ciphers  in  the  book,  and  he  was  deprived  of  all  his 
property  and  banished  to  the  wilderness  of  Archangel 
to  expiate  his  sins. 

Peter  the  Great  in  his  passionate  resolve  to  make 
of  Russia  a  powerful  civilized  state,  reahzed  the 
urgent  need  of  trained  men  to  assist  him  in  his  diffi- 


EDUCATION  45 

cult  tasks.  With  this  purpose  in  view  he  opened  in 
1714  the  first  arithmetic  schools  for  children  of  all 
classes  of  society.  Only  practical  subjects  were 
taught  in  these  schools,  reading,  writing,  geography, 
geometry,  arithmetic,  for  Peter  had  neither  interest 
in  nor  reverence  for  knowledge  for  its  own  sake.  He 
wanted  workers  to  construct  ships,  fortresses,  and  to 
build  cities.  At  one  time  he  had  planned  to  make 
attendance  in  these  schools  compulsory,  and  to  en- 
force this  decree  he  had  hoped  to  prohibit  marriage 
to  those  who  had  not  completed  their  required 
courses  of  study.  But  nothing  came  of  this  plan. 
The  church  which  hated  Peter  and  called  him  the 
anti-christ,  strenuously  opposed  his  secular  educa- 
tional poHcies.  Besides  there  were  no  teachers,  no 
text-books,  no  ready  buildings  and  no  funds  for  such 
a  grandiose  system  of  popular  education.  At  the  end 
of  Peter's  reign  there  v/ere  only  110  elementary 
schools  in  Russia. 

Incidentally,  to  appreciate  the  difficulty  Peter 
would  have  had  in  putting  into  operation  any  ex- 
tensive system  of  scientific  education  in  Russia,  we 
need  only  remind  ourselves  of  the  fate  of  the  Acad- 
emy of  Sciences  he  had  planned.  That  Academy  was 
to  be  the  center  of  Russian  culture  and  research  and 
serve  as  a  guide  and  inspirer  to  those  engaged  in  edu- 
cational pursuits.  The  Academy  was  opened  a  year 
after  Peter's  death.    Russia  had  no  scholars  compe- 


46    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

tent  to  take  charge  of  such  an  institution.  So  the 
authorities  went  to  Germany  and  imported  seventeen 
savants,  all  famous  in  their  particular  fields  of  knowl- 
edge. When  they  came  to  Russia — alas!  there  were 
no  students  in  the  Academy  and  none  could  be  mus- 
tered in.  So  the  authorities  journeyed  to  Germany 
again  and  brought  with  them  eight  German  students. 
Now  the  professors  had  audiences,  but  soon  half  of 
these  students  were  drafted  into  government  work, 
and  no  new  ones  came.  It  was  then  decided  that  to 
keep  up  the  Academy  the  professors  would  lecture 
to  each  other. 

During  the  reign  of  Catherine  the  second  the 
question  of  schools  for  the  peasants  was  raised 
again.  In  the  intervening  years  since  Peter's  death, 
it  had  been  entirely  ignored,  as  was  the  problem 
of  education  in  general,  and  Catherine  who  exalted 
learning  and  flirted  with  liberal  ideals  almost  as 
zealously  as  she  did  with  handsome  courtiers, 
wished  to  raise  Russia  to  the  level  of  education 
which  prevailed  in  Prussia.  In  1780  a  commission, 
she  had  appointed  to  make  a  survey  of  the  problem 
had  presented  a  plan  for  the  estabUshment  of  a  school 
in  every  village,  one  for  each  100-250  famihes, 
under  the  supervision  of  the  church  and  with  the 
compulsory  support  of  the  parishioners.  The  plan 
was  not  to  the  taste  of  the  landlords.  What  need 
was  there  for  schools  for  the  mouzhik,  they  asked? 


EDUCATION  47 

Of  what  good  was  education  to  him?  It  would  only 
wean  him  from  his  work  and  breed  restlessness 
and  rebeUion.  In  the  end  Catherine  perceived 
the  lurking  dangers  in  her  ambitious  educational 
scheme,  and  she  gladly  abandoned  it. 

Thus  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
were  practically  no  schools  for  the  peasants  in  Russia, 
excepting  here  and  there  their  own  primitive  schools 
conducted  in  secret.  Nor  did  the  first  half  of  the 
following  century  mark  a  substantial  change  in 
the  situation.  The  decree  of  Alexander  the  first 
for  the  estabhshment  of  a  parish  school  in  every 
community,  might  never  have  been  issued  for  all 
the  practical  good  it  achieved.  The  peasants  were 
suspicious  of  the  scheme,  and,  therefore,  opposed 
it.  They  did  not  understand  its  significance  and 
no  effort  was  made  to  explain  it  to  them.  The 
landlords  were  even  more  hostile.  Only  the  clergy 
showed  a  keen  interest  in  the  project.  In  the  Nov- 
gorod province  they  offered  their  own  homes  for 
the  housing  of  these  schools,  and  in  1806,  100  of 
them  were  opened.  Two  years  later  they  were  all 
closed.  In  Olonetz  20  were  started,  in  Archangel 
9  and  in  other  provinces  similar  numbers.  But  by 
1819  not  a  vestige  of  them  had  remained.  In  1826 
there  was  an  official  record  of  600  elementary 
schools  in  Russia.  But  it  was  only  a  paper-record — 
none  of  the  schools  existed  in  actuality.    It  could  not 


48    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

be  otherwise  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  Nicholas 
the  first,  who  suppressed  even  the  private  schools  of 
the  nobility,  because  he  wished  "to  cleanse  the  Rus- 
sian student's  mind  of  that  disastrous  plethora  of 
half-assimilated  knowledge,  that  impulse  toward  ex- 
treme visionary  theories,  the  beginning  of  which  is 
moral  deterioration,  and  the  end  ruin!" 

If  Nicholas  had  had  his  way  not  a  single  peasant 
would  have  learned  to  read  and  write  during  his 
reign.  But  circumstances  were  stronger  than  his 
will.  The  Ministry  of  PubUc  Domains,  which 
managed  the  crown  and  state  lands,  on  which  hved 
twenty  million  serfs,  needed  a  large  army  of  clerks 
to  look  after  the  interests  of  the  imperial  family 
in  its  own  serf-communities,  and  to  train  such 
clerks  the  above  Ministry,  without  even  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  Ministry  of  Pubhc  Instruction,  which 
in  its  own  realm  sought  to  suppress  education, 
opened  special  schools  in  many  villages  that  were 
under  its  jurisdiction.  The  first  of  these  schools 
were  started  in  1830.  Students  had  to  be  drafted, 
for  the  peasants  were  suspicious  and  prejudiced 
against  the  efforts  to  compel  them  to  undergo  a, 
training,  the  nature  and  pm-pose  of  which  they  did 
not  understand.  But  once  these  schools  were 
begun,  they  continued  to  spread,  though  ultimately 
by  1842  their  aim  was  no  longer  to  train  special 
clerks,  but  to  inculcate  in  the  pupils  sound  moral 


EDUCATION  49 

and  religious  principles.  The  government  managed 
these  schools,  but  the  peasants  were  made  to  pay 
the  cost  of  their  maintenance. 

Side  by  side  with  these  schools  on  the  crown 
lands,  primary  schools  were  also  built  on  the  state 
lands,  and  parish  schools  were  started  on  the  estates 
of  private  landlords.  This  was  done  not  out  of  a 
desire  to  uplift  the  peasant,  but  partly  as  a  con- 
cession to  the  demand  of  enhghtened  pubhc  opinion 
that  something  be  done  to  spread  education  in 
the  villages,  and  mainly  with  the  aim  of  instilling 
proper  ideas  of  loyalty  and  devotion  to  the  Czar 
and  the  church,  and  thus  to  counteract  the  revolu- 
tionary tendencies  that  were  permeatmg  the  peas- 
antry. At  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Nicholas  the 
first  there  were  8200  elementary  schools  in  Russia 
with  450,000  pupils,  who,  however,  constituted  only 
about  three-fourths  of  one  per  cent  of  the  entire  pop- 
ulation of  63  miUions. 

Such  were  the  beginnings  of  primary  instruction 
in  Russia,  not  at  all  extensive,  and  prompted  by  a 
desire  on  the  part  of  those  officially  directing  the 
movement  not  to  develop  the  capacities  or  stimulate 
the  ambition  or  enlarge  the  mental  faculties  of  the 
peasant  population,  but  chiefly  to  breed  in  them 
an  acquiescence  in  the  prevailing  mode  of  life  and 
government. 

Then  came  the  emancipation.     Now  there  was 


50    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

an  opportunity  to  open  wide  the  avenues  of  en- 
lightenment and  learning  to  the  freed  serf.  And  on 
two  different  occasions  in  1864  and  again  in  1876  the 
Czar  and  his  ministers  had,  indeed,  considered  the 
problem  of  universal  primary  instruction.  Com- 
missions were  appointed,  investigations  conducted, 
projects  drafted,  reports  made  and  as  in  so  many 
former  instances,  soon  forgotten  and  abandoned. 
It  was  evident  that  the  government  had  no  desire 
to  introduce  universal  elementary  education  in 
the  village. 

Only  when  the  zemstvos  appeared  on  the  scene 
were  earnest  efforts  made  to  promote  primary 
instruction  in  rural  Russia.  The  zemstvos  were 
elective  provincial  assemblies  with  limited  self- 
government,  dedicated  to  benevolent  activities, 
such  as  building  hospitals,  schools,  libraries,  mend- 
ing roads  and  in  other  ways  rendering  assistance 
to  communities  and  individuals.  Though  the 
preponderant  representation  in  them  was  of  the 
landlord  class,  because  of  a  regulation  hmiting  the 
voting  power  of  the  peasant,  the  zemstvos,  never- 
theless, were  as  a  rule,  loyal  to  their  trust,  and  they 
laid  a  solid  foundation  for  popular  education  in 
Russia.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  in  the 
34  provinces  in  which  they  functioned,  there  would 
have  scarcely  been  a  village  by  this  time  without 
some  form  of  a  schooUiouse,  if  the  government  had 


EDUCATION  51 

not  incessantly  interfered  with  their  efforts,  even 
to  the  point  of  compeUing  the  dismissal  of  members 
especially  active  in  educational  work.  As  an  indi- 
cation of  the  extent  of  their  educational  activities 
it  is  only  necessary  to  point  to  the  fact  that  in  1868 
in  27  provinces  they  spent  on  education  408,000 
roubles,  not  a  huge  sum,  but  larger  than  any  other 
body  in  Russia  had  ever  before  spent  for  such  an 
object.  In  1869  the  amount  was  doubled,  and  in 
the  following  years  it  increased  rapidly  as  shown  in 
the  table  below. 

Year  Roubles 

1881  3,684,000 

1891  5,334,000 

1901  16,544,000 

1911  52,278,000 

The  government  gladly  shifted  the  responsibility 
of  supporting  the  primary  schools  in  the  villages  to 
the  zenistvos.  Toward  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  government  expended  one-fifth  of  its 
annual  budget  on  the  army  and  navy,  another  fifth 
on  salaries  and  administrative  expenses,  and  only 
0.4  per  cent  on  elementary  education.  In  1910  nearly 
one  bilhon  roubles  was  spent  in  Russia  on  the  primary 
schools,  and  the  zemstvossLTid  city  councils  paid  a 
full  two-thirds  of  the  sum. 

The  zemstvos,  however,  cheerfully  assumed  their 
burden.    They  continued  to  build  new  schools  and 


m    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  raise  the  standards  of  those  aheady  in  existence, 
despite  the  difficulties  that  were  put  in  their  way. 
Their  schools  crowded  out  the  others,  especially  the 
parish  schools.  The  clergy  had  lost  interest  in  the 
latter.  It  was  a  thankless  job.  They  furnished 
their  homes  and  their  time  gratuitously,  and  they 
saw  no  reason  why  they  should  do  it,  when  the 
zemstvos  were  paying  salaries  to  their  teachers  and 
rent  for  the  houses  they  were  using  for  school  pur- 
poses. In  1881  there  were  only  4440  parish  schools 
on  record,  and  most  of  these  upon  investigation 
were  discovered  to  exist  on  paper  only.  In  Yekater- 
inoslav,  for  example,  400  parish  schools  were  sup- 
posed to  have  been  in  operation,  but  Dimitry  Tol- 
stoy, ober-procureur  of  the  Holy  Synod,  learned 
upon  inquiry  that  not  one  of  them  had  actually 
been  in  session. 

Though  the  zemstvo  schools  offered  only  three  and 
four  year  terms,  and  their  courses  of  study  were 
quite  modest — reading  and  writing  of  Russian,  arith- 
metic, the  rudiments  of  geography,  and  prescribed 
church  subjects — the  government  grew  alarmed  over 
their  popularity.  Society  approved  of  them  and  sup- 
ported them  generously,  and  there  was  danger  in 
that.  A  campaign  of  repression  and  coercion  fol- 
lowed. The  government  did  not  allow  the  zemstvos 
to  build  advanced  schools,  though  there  were 
scarcely  any  in  Russia  which  a  peasant  might  at- 


EDUCATION  BS 

tend,  and  in  1902  when  the  zemstvos  were  planning 
to  introduce  universal  elementary  education,  the 
government  put  its  heel  on  the  project  by  prohib- 
iting them  from  raising  their  taxes  by  more  than 
two  per  cent  a  year,  thus  making  it  impossible  to 
obtain  the  funds  necessary  for  the  realization  of  the 
contemplated  plan. 

Further  to  counteract  the  advance  of  the  zemstvos 
schools  the  government  began  to  build  its  own 
schools,  rehgious,  under  the  auspices  of  the  church, 
and  secular  under  the  supervision  of  the  Ministry  of 
Pubhc  Instruction.  It  began  a  campaign  of  agita- 
tion against  the  zemstvo  schools,  pronounced  them 
too  expensive,  inefficient,  not  expressive  of  the  na- 
tional spirit  and  remote  from  the  immediate  interests 
of  the  people,  who  needed  not  learning  as  much  as  a 
deeper  and  truer  understanding  of  God,  the  church 
and  loyalty  to  the  existing  regime.  It  was  the  ghost 
of  Nicholas  the  first  come  to  life  again.  An  elaborate 
series  of  statutes  was  worked  out  for  the  operation 
of  the  church  schools.  Rehgious  subjects, — the 
Slavonic  language,  prayers,  the  psalter,  Bible  stories, 
the  catechism,  were  the  basic  topics  of  study  in  the 
curriculum.  Priests  were  immediately  ordered  to 
open  such  schools.  Those  that  failed  to  comply 
promptly  with  the  order,  were  fined,  and  those  that 
fulfilled  it  immediately  were  awarded  prizes  out  of 
the  fines  of  their  more  tardy  colleagues.    From  year 


54    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  year  state  appropriations  for  the  support  of  the 
church  schools  increased,  and  in  course  of  time  they 
received  the  hon's  share  of  the  annual  appropriation 
for  elementary  education.  The  ministerial  schools, 
modelled  after  those  the  zemstvos  were  operating, 
and  intended  to  supplant  the  latter,  roused  little 
public  favor,  and  in  the  provinces  where  the  zemstvos 
functioned,  very  few  of  them  were  built. 

The  government  super\'ised  all  courses  of  study 
and  strove  to  limit  the  amount  of  instruction  in  cul- 
tural sub j  ects .  Literatm-e  was  practically  eliminated , 
History,  insomuch  as  it  was  given,  was  more  a  record 
of  fables,  saints  and  miracles,  than  a  study  of  past 
events  and  institutions.  Nothing  that  might  stim- 
ulate original  thought  or  questioning  was  permitted. 
Only  '^safe"  subjects  were  sanctioned.  In  late  years 
manual  training  and  agriculture  were  introduced. 
On  the  face  of  it  that  might  appear  an  advanced  step 
in  education  and  one  might  be  tempted  to  bestow 
a  word  of  praise  upon  the  Ministry  of  Instruction 
for  its  quickness  in  emulating  western  educational 
ideals.  But  when  one  considers  that  the  course  of 
instruction  in  the  Russian  primary  schools  even  in 
the  best  of  them,  lasted  only  four  years,  that  a  large 
number  of  students  left  before  they  graduated,  that 
purely  educational  subjects  were  already  limited, 
one  cannot  help  feehng,  that  it  was  a  mere  mockery 
of  education  to  thrust  upon  the  primary  schools 


EDUCATION  55 

manual  training  and  agriculture.  The  real  motive 
for  this  extraordinary  modernness  of  Russian  official 
educators,  was  a  desire  so  to  crowd  the  study  hours 
of  both  student  and  teacher,  as  to  leave  them  little 
or  no  time  for  the  discussion  of  political  and  social 
problems. 

Another  adverse  feature  of  the  Russian  school 
system  was  the  quality  of  the  text-books.  The 
Ministry  of  Instruction  had  to  approve  of  all  books 
that  were  used  in  the  schools.  These  books  had  to 
be  ''safe,"  so  that  the  men  best  fitted  to  write  or 
compile  a  text-book,  could  not  do  so  conscien- 
tiously and  have  their  work  accepted  by  the  school 
officials.  Consequently,  the  task  of  composing  such 
books  fell  upon  mediocre  men,  or  men  who  would  play 
safe  at  the  expense  of  truth.  In  either  case  the  best 
product  from  an  academic  standpoint  was  out  of  the 
question.  One  needs  only  to  look  over  the  pages  of 
the  histories  of  Rozhdestvensky  and  Ilovaysky,  which 
were  widely  studied  in  the  Russian  schools,  to  con- 
vince himself  of  the  low  and  perverted  standards  of 
scholarship  of  the  makers  of  Russian  text-books. 

Perhaps  the  most  pitiful  aspect  of  the  Russian 
primary  school  was  the  position  of  the  teacher,  both 
legal  and  economic.  From  the  government's  stand- 
point his  was  a  most  responsible  position.  He  had 
to  be  a  safe  man.  If  he  was  not  in  every  possible 
way,  he  could  not  be  tolerated.    Therefore,  an  elab- 


56    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

orate  system  of  espionage  over  him  was  established. 
Every  official  and  pubUc  servant  above  and  aromid 
him  kept  vigilant  watch  over  every  move  he  made 
and  every  word  he  uttered.  If  the  village  constable, 
a  Czar  in  his  realm,  was  at  any  time  displeased  with 
him,  he  scolded  and  threatened  him  with  serious 
punishment.  If  the  priest  missed  him  in  church  at 
any  time  or  did  not  particularly  Hke  his  conduct,  or 
had  a  personal  grudge  against  him,  he  censured  him 
severely,  or  reported  him  to  superiors,  and  he  was 
either  transferred  or  else  discharged.  If  any  of  the 
local  district  or  national  school  inspectors  wandered 
into  his  class-room — and  there  was  a  vast  swarm  of 
them,  always  prying  not  only  into  the  official  duties 
of  the  teacher,  but  also  into  his  private  affairs  and 
home  Hfe — and  observed  something  in  the  personal 
conduct  of  the  man  or  in  his  methods  of  teaching  or 
in  his  manner  of  treating  the  pupils,  that  did  not 
meet  with  his  approval,  there  was,  of  course,  trouble 
galore  for  the  school-master.  Who  that  has  ever 
been  in  a  Russian  school  when  an  inspector  visited 
it,  and  watched  him  pass  from  aisle  to  aisle  putting 
questions  now  to  this,  now  to  that  pupil  and  mut- 
tering approval  or  disapproval,  can  forget  the  agi- 
tation, the  trembling,  the  low  and  profuse  bowing 
of  the  teacher,  like  a  serf  to  his  master,  and  the 
constant  mumbling  of  the  servile  "sliishayus''  (at 
your  service,  sir)? 


EDUCATION  57 

More  tragic  was  the  economic  position  of  the 
teacher.  There  was  not  a  class  of  pubHc  servants  in 
Russia,  who  on  the  whole  lived  in  such  straitened 
circumstances  as  did  teachers.  Policemen,  it  is  ti*ue, 
were  poorly  paid.  But  they  drew  an  income  from 
bribes.  The  teacher,  however,  had  no  opportunity  to 
soUcit  bribes,  and  if  he  had,  he  was,  as  a  rule,  too 
honorable  to  stoop  to  such  methods  of  gain.  The 
following  table  shows  how  miserably  paid  the  pri- 
mary school  teacher  in  Russia  was  compared  to  his 
colleague  in  other  countries : 

Salary  per  year  in  roubles 

Italy 620 

France 481 

Holland 875 

No.  America 1320 

England 1665 

Russia 360 

The  sum  of  360  roubles  the  Russian  teacher  began 
to  receive  only  in  recent  years  and  then  not  every- 
where. Yet  a  year  before  the  war  broke  out  a  survey 
made  by  the  "Russkaya  Shkola,"  a  pedagogic  maga- 
zine, disclosed  the  fact,  that  a  teacher  who  was  single 
living  in  a  village  in  a  manner  comporting  with  his 
social  position,  required  for  his  sustenance  536.4 
roubles,  while  a  family  man  needed  1072.8  roubles, 
and  if  he  had  children  attending  school  in  the  city  he 
required  several  hundred  roubles  more. 


68    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Being  so  poorly  paid  many  teachers  did  not  dare 
to  marry.  It  was  about  all  they  could  do  to  support 
themselves.  In  summer  they  searched  everywhere 
for  work,  in  the  manner  of  an  American  youth 
working  his  way  through  college,  in  hotels,  res- 
taurants, on  farms,  in  banks,  on  excursion  boats, 
as  porters  on  trains,  anywhere  at  all,  and  it  was 
only  because  of  their  sunmier  earnings  that  they 
were  enabled  to  make  ends  meet.  It  is  not  strange 
at  all,  therefore,  that  many  teachers  left  their  posts 
shortly  after  they  accepted  them,  and  searched  for 
work  in  more  profitable  occupations.  When  the 
government  assiuned  a  monopoly  of  the  vodka 
shops  and  advertised  for  clerks  to  run  them,  thou- 
sands of  teachers  abandoned  their  pedagogic  careers 
and  became  saloonkeepers. 

WhBjt  was  the  net  result  of  all  these  conditions? 
First,  there  was  a  woefully  small  number  of  schools 
in  Russia,  and  these  were  overcrowded.  In  191G 
in  the  United  States  out  of  a  population  of  one 
hundred  millions,  nearly  twenty-four  milhons  were 
in  school,  while  in  Russia  in  1912  out  of  a  population 
of  one  hundred  and  eighty  milhons,  scarcely  seven 
millions  could  find  accommodations  in  the  schools. 
In  1911  the  ratio  of  the  male  pupils  in  the  elemen- 
tary schools  of  European  Russia  to  the  entire  male 
population  was  5.48  per  cent;  that  of  the  female 
pupils  to  the  female  population  2.6  per  cent  giving 


EDUCATION  59 

an  average  of  4.04  per  cent,  as  compared  with  15.9 
per  cent  in  Germany.  Secondly,  according  to  the 
report  of  the  investigating  commission  of  the  third 
Duma,  the  schools  were  uniformly  poor,  the  moral 
and  educational  influences  they  exerted  were  insig- 
nificant; many  of  the  graduates  soon  after  leaving 
school  dropped  back  into  the  class  of  illiterates. 
No  wonder  that  at  the  time  the  war  broke  out  at 
least  fifty  per  cent  of  the  Russian  peasants  were 
entirely  unschooled  and  could  not  even  sign  their 
names. 

Being  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of  gaining  edu- 
cation even  after  he  was  freed  from  serfdom,  the 
peasant  was  fearfully  handicapped  in  his  struggle 
for  self-improvement.  If  he  had  to  wTite  a  letter  or 
an  address,  or  read  a  letter,  or  a  government  docu- 
ment, he  had  to  go  and  search  for  somebody  to 
do  it  for  him,  and  often  he  had  to  pay  a  fee  for  such 
a  service.  Then,  if  he  entered  into  some  written 
contract  with  a  middle-man  or  landlord,  he  was 
entirely  at  their  mercy.  They  could  cheat  him  to 
his  last  kopeck,  and  he  could  not  help  himself.  No 
wonder  that  to  this  day  the  peasant  is  suspicious 
of  written  documents. 

But  worst  of  all  is  the  social  and  pohtical  provin- 
ciahsm  of  the  peasant.  He  knows  Httle  of  the  out- 
side world,  even  of  his  own  country.  He  is  a  stranger 
in  his  own  fatherland.     And  when  a  great  crisis 


60    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

sweeps  over  Russia  such  as  the  European  war,  or 
the  Revolution,  he  can  see  and  think  of  it  only  in 
terms  of  his  ignorance,  or  rather  in  terms  of  his  very 
limited  personal  experience.  All  the  political  phrase- 
ology that  is  on  the  tips  of  our  tongues  in  this  coun- 
try, is  entirely  foreign  to  him,  and  when  we  approach 
him  with  such  phraseology  he  cannot  understand 
us,  and  will  not  listen  to  us.  This  cardinal  fact 
we  must  always  bear  in  mind,  when  we  wish  to 
understand  the  state  of  mind  of  the  peasant.  When, 
for  example,  in  the  last  days  of  the  old  government 
Minister  Trepov  in  a  last  desperate  attempt  to 
rouse  enthusiasm  for  his  discredited  regime,  an- 
nounced that  the  Alhes  had  agreed  to  award  to 
Russia  the  Dardanelles,  the  peasant  was  indifferent. 
He  did  not  care  whether  Russia  had  the  straits 
or  not.  In  many  instances  he  did  not  even  know 
whether  the  Dardanelles  or  Constantinople  was 
a  mountain  or  a  new  brand  of  tobacco. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    LEGAL   AND  SOCIAL    POSITION    OF    THE 
PEASANT 

When  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  was  pro- 
claimed the  officials  explained  to  the  world,  that  the 
peasant  was  incapable  of  properly  caring  for  him- 
self, that  he  had  neither  the  experience,  nor  the 
education,  nor  the  intelHgence  for  that.  Therefore 
he  had  to  be  placed  under  paternal  guardianship. 
This  was  their  excuse  for  continuing  to  domineer 
over  the  Russian  village.  Accordingly  the  eman- 
cipation act  was  so  planned,  that  while  it  removed 
the  personal  tyranny  of  the  landlord,  it  did  not 
usher  ui  personal  freedom  for  the  peasant.  Bent 
upon  holding  in  leash  his  rising  discontent  and 
protecting  the  interests  of  the  landlords,  the  govern- 
ment hedged  and  hemmed  in  the  peasant  with  a 
multitude  of  legal  and  social  restrictions,  which 
robbed  him  of  the  opportunity  of  working  out  his  des- 
tiny in  accordance  with  his  own  understanding.  He 
became  as  a  Russian  writer  aptly  phrases  it  "the 
object  and  not  the  subject  of  rights. " 

What  were  these  restrictions? 

A  consideration  of  their  nature,  rnanner  of  ap- 


62    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

plication  and  effects,  will  disclose  to  us  another 
force  that  was  wrecking  the  welfare  of  the  peasant, 
and  will  also  make  clear  why  the  peasant  has  evinced 
a  negative  attitude  toward  law  and  a  contempt  for 
authority  "from  above." 

In  the  first  place  the  peasant  was  set  apart  from 
the  other  classes  of  society.  His  legal  status  was 
different  from  that  of  the  burgher,  the  merchant, 
the  nobleman.  Up  to  1906  he  was  barred  from 
the  higher  institutions  of  learning  and  could  not 
rise  to  important  rank  in  the  service.  If  a  member 
of  another  class  lived  in  a  peasant  community,  he 
was  forbidden  to  hold  office  there,  or  in  any  other 
direct  way  to  help  in  the  administration  of  its  local 
affairs.  He  could  not  become  a  mem.ber  of  the 
peasant  class,  even  if  he  wanted  to.  Likewise  a 
peasant  had  no  right  to  participate  in  the  collective 
social  activities  of  any  of  the  other  classes  amongst 
whom  he  Hved.  His  social  isolation  was  as  complete 
after  the  emancipation  as  it  had  been  during  serfdom. 

Secondly  he  was  chained  to  the  mir  (commune). 
The  mir  was  his  paternal  guardian.  Everything 
possible  was  done  to  render  it  difficult  for  him  to 
extricate  himself  from  its  control.  He  could  not 
leave  the  mir  without  its  consent,  and  even  then  ho 
had  many  obstacles  to  overcome  before  he  could 
effect  his  departure.  He  had  to  have  a  passport, 
without  which  he  could  not  move  beyond  a  radius 


THE  PEASANT'S  LEGAL  AND  SOCIAL  POSITION     63 

of  thirty  versts  from  his  home,  and  to  get  a  pass- 
port it  was  necessary  first  to  obtain  a  certificate 
from  the  starosta,  the  village  elder,  stating  that 
he  had  no  objection  to  the  departure  of  the  appli- 
cant, then  to  present  it  to  the  starshiria,  the  dis- 
trict chief,  then  to  the  pisar,  the  district  clerk,  who 
issued  the  passport,  gave  it  to  the  starshina,  and  the 
latter  deUvered  it  to  the  petitioner.  It  took  months 
at  times  to  unwind  this  clumsy  roll  of  red-tape, 
which  was  created  solely  for  the  purpose  of  keeping 
the  peasant  tied  to  the  commune  as  long  as  possible. 
The  supremacy  of  the  rule  of  the  mir  would  have 
perhaps  proved  of  advantage  to  the  peasant,  if 
he  had  been  allowed  freedom  to  formulate  and 
execute  its  corporate  will.  Then  the  mir  would 
have  been  what  it  originally  was  in  olden  times, 
a  throughly  democratic  and  self-governing  body. 
In  small  matters,  the  mir  was  not  interfered  with. 
At  the  skhods,  the  village  meetings,  the  mir  could, 
for  example,  elect  its  shepherds  for  the  summer; 
it  could  decide  where  to  pasture  the  cows,  where 
the  horses,  where  the  sheep  and  hogs  (these  are 
usually  pastured  together) ;  it  might  exercise  its  own 
discretion  in  levying  the  amount  of  grain  each  mem- 
ber was  to  contribute  to  the  village  granary — a  sort 
of  grain  bank  where  in  winter  and  spring  the  needy 
might  borrow  rye,  barley,  oats,  for  seed  or  bread;  it 
might  build  its  own  blacksmith  shop  and  windmill, 


64    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

and  choose  its  own  smith  and  miller;  it  might 
enact  a  law  prohibiting  the  keeping  of  geese  or  tur- 
keys, if  they  proved  destructive  to  crops.  In  all 
such  matters  of  a  purely  local  non-political  character, 
which  did  not  in  any  way  encroach  upon  the  aims 
and  pohcies  of  the  government,  the  mir  enjoyed  full 
liberty  of  action. 

But  in  the  larger  and  more  significant  aspect 
of  the  individual  and  social  Ufe  of  the  peasant,  the 
mir  was  deprived  of  the  privilege  of  formulating 
its  own  will.  It  had  to  conform  to  the  dictatorial 
rules  from  above.  That  was  precisely  the  reason 
why  the  individual  peasant  was  subjected  to  the 
control  of  the  mir.  It  was  much  easier  for  the 
government  to  exercise  its  authority  over  the  peas- 
antry through  the  mir,  than  through  dealing  with 
each  one  individually.  The  viir,  for  example,  was 
held  responsible  for  the  payment  of  taxes  of  all  its 
members,  and  its  various  oJ3icials  were  empowered 
to  deal  drastically  with  a  deluiquent  individual. 
They  might  flog  him,  appoint  a  guardian  over  him, 
hire  him  out  and  compel  him  to  earn  his  unpaid  tax. 
The  mir  was  also  given  the  right  to  exile  any  of  its 
members  to  Siberia  without  trial,  and  beginning 
with  1886  it  was  further  authorized  to  settle  domestic 
difficulties,  such  as  the  division  of  property,  family 
feuds  arising  out  of  quarrels  over  land  and  similar 
matters.     In  short  the  government  strove  to  con- 


THE  PEASANT'S  LEGAL  AND  SOCIAL  POSITION    65 

vert  the  mir  into  a  weapon  which  it  could  wield 
effectively  over  the  peasant  and  keep  him  as  com- 
pletely in  subjection  as  did  the  landlords  before 
the  emancipation. 

The  government  knew,  however,  that  it  could 
not  entirely  depend  upon  the  mir  for  the  execution 
of  its  orders  and  the  enforcement  of  its  will.  After 
all  the  mir  was  made  up  of  peasants  who  knew  each 
other,  helped  each  other,  sympathized  with  each 
other.  They  might  ignore  a  command  they  dis- 
liked, or  disregard  the  prescribed  treatment  for 
the  unruly  and  delinquent.  iBesides,  left  to  itself 
the  mir  might  become  a  hotbed  of  unrest,  and 
revolutionary  agitators  might  acquire  the  leader- 
ship over  it,  and  lead  the  peasant  into  rebeUion. 
To  forestall  such  a  contingency  the  government 
thrust  upon  the  village  an  army  of  officials  with 
powers  to  enforce  whatever  rules  were  deemed 
necessary  for  the  mir  to  observe. 

There  were  all  manner  of  officials  in  the  Russian 
village,  high  and  low,  uniformed  and  ununiformed, 
some  elected,  most  appointed.  There  was  the 
ispravnik — the  district  police  commissioner — a  man 
in  a  gray  uniform  with  glistening  silver  buttons, 
shining  epaulets,  lacquered  boots  and  jingling  spurs — 
a  formidable  personage  to  look  at.  The  mere  sight 
of  him  cowered  the  peasant.  He  lived  in  the  city 
or  town,  and  descended  upon  the  village  unexpectedly 


66    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

at  frequent  intervals,  more  frequent  than  was  good 
for  the  peace  and  comfort  of  the  peasant.  Between 
1868  and  1874  when  the  ofhce  of  the  village  mediators 
was  suppressed,  the  mir  was  practically  transferred 
to  the  absolute  control  of  the  ispravnik,  and  even 
after  that  he  exercised  a  great  deal  of  pohce  author- 
ity over  the  village.  During  the  period  of  his 
absolute  rule  his  will  was  law,  and  since  the  mouzhik 
could  not  tell  one  day  what  the  will  of  his  highness 
would  be  the  next,  he  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what 
was  expected  of  him,  yet  he  was  held  responsible 
for  the  fulfillment  of  this  law.  The  communal 
elders  were  mere  errand  boys  of  the  ispravnik — 
worse,  mere  juggling  balls,  which  he  could  manipu- 
late and  toss  about  at  will.  He  could  indict,  fine, 
abuse,  imprison  or  punish  them  in  whatever  manner 
he  pleased.  There  was  only  one  way  an  mdividual 
or  the  mir  could  curry  favor  with  the  ispravnik, 
and  that  was  by  means  of  bribes — a  language  old 
Russian  officialdom  always  heeded  with  alacrity. 

Set  over  the  ispravnik  and  the  stanovoi,  his  assist- 
ant, was  the  governor  of  the  province,  the  governor- 
general  of  the  region  embracing  several  provinces, 
and  around  them  swarmed  vast  coteries  of  officials, 
directly  and  indirectly  connecting  them  with  the 
peasant.  Though  they  but  seldom  had  occasion 
to  enter  into  personal  relations  with  the  latter,  they 
nevertheless  made  themselves  felt  one  way  or  an- 


THE  PEASANT'S  LEGAL  AND  SOCLVL  POSITION    67 

other,  now  through  a  special  edict  or  special  appeal, 
or  special  warning.  In  Siberia  the  high  officials 
did  come  into  close  contact  with  the  peasant  set- 
tlers, only  to  defraud  them  of  vast  areas  of  land. 
In  Ufa  and  Orenbourg  alone  between  the  years  of 
1873  and  1879  they  robbed  the  peasant  pioneers 
of  five  milhon  acres  of  the  best  arable  and  timber 
land  in  those  provinces. 

More  mischievous  and  degrading  was  the  rule 
of  the  smaller  officials,  for  unlike  the  higher,  they 
sojourned  with  the  peasant,  met  him  often,  watched 
over  his  conduct  and  therefore  had  more  abundant 
opportimity  to  harass  and  plunder  him.  Some  of 
the  lower  officials  exercised  but  little  authority, 
like  the  starosta,  the  village  elder,  and  also  the  star- 
shina,  the  district  chief,  both  elected  by  the  com- 
munes. The}'  were  merely  the  agents  of  their  supe- 
riors. They  did  not  even  wear  uniforms,  and  their 
duties  were  by  no  means  manifold  or  exacting.  This 
was  especially  true  of  the  starosta,  who  had  so  Uttle  to 
do,  that  he  kept  up  his  work  in  the  field  like  his 
neighbors.  The  starshina  devoted  all  his  time  to 
his  office.  He  was  quite  a  personage  and  had  better 
opportimity  to  exploit  his  office  for  selfish  ends. 

It  was  different  with  the  pisar,  the  village  clerk. 
His  was  a  highly  important  position.  He  kept  the 
records  of  the  district  administration,  interpreted 
the  law,  and  attended  to  the  other  affairs  which  re- 


68    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

quired  a  knowledge  of  reading  and  writing.  This 
very  knowledge  gave  him  a  decided  advantage  not 
only  over  the  ordinary  peasant  but  even  over  the 
starosta  and  starshina,  whose  secretary  he  was,  or  was 
supposed  to  be.  They  were  entirely  helpless  without 
his  aid,  especially  if  they  happened  to  be  illiterate, 
which  was  often  the  case. 

The  pisar  was,  as  a  rule,  a  man  of  little  education. 
Graduates  of  the  gymnasium  or  colleges  were  not 
eligible  for  the  position  of  district  clerk.  Only  those 
who  had  graduated  from  a  primary  school  or  had 
had  a  few  years  in  the  gymnasium  were  acceptable. 
They  were  less  likely  to  engage  in  revolutionary 
activity.  As  a  rule  only  the  aggressive,  self-seeking, 
unscrupulous  type  of  petty  semi-intellectual  apphed 
for  this  position;  high-minded  men  shunned  it, 
just  as  they  shunned  all  positions  under  the  command 
of  the  bureaucracy.  The  pisar  looked  upon  his  office 
solely  as  a  means  of  self-aggrandizment,  and  he  had 
abundant  opportunity  to  subordinate  his  position  to 
personal  gain.  If  a  peasant  had  to  apply  to  the 
pisar  to  make  a  report  in  writing,  or  present  a  peti- 
tion or  to  fill  out  a  document,  the  pisar  of  course 
always  expected  '^something,"  else  he  sulked, 
grumbled,  said  he  was  busy,  and  fidgetted  about 
until  he  received  a  fee.  If  a  peasant  had  to  secure  a 
passport,  without  which  he  could  not  travel,  the 
pisar  made  him  come  again  and  again  to  the  dis- 


THE  PEASANT'S  LEGAL  AND  SOCIAL  POSITION    69 

trict-office,  which  was  often  many  miles  from  his 
home,  unless  the  mouzhik  was  wise  enough  to  bring 
a  voluntary  donation  the  first  time  he  came.  The 
pisar  never  missed  an  opportunity  to  extort  bribes. 
It  remained,  however,  for  the  uriadnik — consta- 
ble— to  show  to  the  peasant  and  the  world  how  near 
an  official  can  come  to  being  an  affliction.  The  yisar 
was  at  least  somewhat  refined,  especially  if  given  a 
generous  gift.  And  at  worst  he  had  not  the  power  to 
inflict  personal  injury  upon  a  peasant.  But  the 
uriadnik — as  a  type  he  was  blunt,  callous,  impudent, 
vile,  rapacious.  Himself  an  outcast  of  the  intellec- 
tual professions  or  from  the  dregs  of  government 
servants  in  the  towns,  he  neither  understood  nor 
cared  to  understand  the  wishes  and  needs  of  those  he 
was  supposed  to  serve.  His  one  aim  seemed  to  have 
been  to  instill  terror  in  the  minds  of  the  villagers. 
He  was  Czar  in  his  realm.  His  prerogatives  were 
unlimited  and  his  duties  were  manifold.  He  was 
chief  of  police,  sanitary  inspector,  statistical  agent, 
moral  guardian  and  anything  else  he  had  a  notion  to 
be.  If  he  was  suddenly  seized  with  a  fancy  to  stop  at 
a  peasant  hut  on  a  cold  winter  day,  go  inside  and 
throw  the  windows  open,  even  though  there  was 
scarcely  any  fuel  in  the  house,  nobody  could  stop 
him;  if  he  saw  a  calf  or  a  pig  in  the  house  and  wished 
to  put  it  outdoors,  even  though  there  was  no  other 
warm  place  for  the  animals,  and  the  peasant  took 


70    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

them  into  the  house  to  save  them  from  freezing, 
nobody  dared  to  protest;  if  he  saw  a  manure  pile  in 
the  open  court,  and  took  a  notion  to  go  in  and  scold 
and  shake  the  peasant  by  his  shirt  or  beard,  the 
peasant  did  not  dare  to  resist.  If  he  was  shrewd  he 
rolled  a  bundle  of  hay  or  a  sack  of  oats  into  the  uriad- 
nik^s  cart,  and  then  he  could  go  on  piling  his  manure 
all  around  the  house  as  high  as  the  roof,  if  ho  chose;  if 
the  uriadnik  chose  to  break  into  a  house  without  a 
warrant  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and  make  a 
search,  it  was  quite  lawful  for  him  to  do  so;  if  he  saw 
a  wedding  procession  in  the  village,  and  did  not  par- 
ticularly care  for  the  songs,  or  the  people,  or  cherished 
a  personal  grudge  against  the  bride's  or  groom's 
father  or  mother,  he  could  unceremoniously  break  up 
the  procession  and  disperse  the  crowd;  if  he  saw  a 
peasant  building  a  house  and  did  not  think  that  it 
met  the  specified  requirements  of  the  law,  he  could 
pull  the  entire  structiu*e  down.  He  could  even  go 
into  a  house  and  scold  and  abuse  the  women,  if  the 
floor  was  not  properly  swept,  or  if  the  pots  were  not 
in  the  place  he  thought  they  ought  to  be,  and  the  men, 
though  they  might  be  near,  dared  not  rebuke  him  for 
his  insolence.  There  was  scarcely  anything  it  was 
unlawful  for  him  to  do.  And  there  was  no  form  of 
redress  against  him.  Complaints  were  useless,  often 
quite  injurious,  and  the  government  protected  him 
in  his  practices,  even  to  the  point  of  prohibiting  the 


THE  PEASANT'S  LEGAL  AND  SOCLVL  POSITION    71 

newspapers  from  printing  accounts  of  outrages  he 
perpetrated.  > 

What  a  figure  an  uriadnik  cut  at  the  village  fair! 
Dressed  in  his  best — in  summer  a  white  military  cap, 
white  blouse,  blue  trousers  tucked  inside  of  shiny- 
black  boots  with  spurs,  a  lacquered  leather  belt  at 
the  waist  and  a  scabbard  dangling  from  his  side,  he 
strutted  slowly,  from  path  to  path,  booth  to  booth, 
everyone  humbly  tipping  his  hat  and  the  women 
vendors  smiling  and  nodding  their  heads  at  him. 
Now  he  stopped  at  this  booth,  now  at  that,  picked  up 
a  piece  of  cake  or  candy  and  marched  on,  stopped 
somewhere  else,  helped  himself  once  more  to  some- 
thing and  marched  on  again,  and  everywhere  he 
went  people  paid  him  homage,  as  though  he  were 
some  all-powerful  being,  whose  good-will  was  indis- 
pensable to  their  very  existence.  And  when  there 
was  a  brawl  or  a  fight — how  all  quieted  down  the 
moment  he  arrived  on  the  scene,  hke  a  class  of  tur- 
bulent youngsters  when  the  teacher  comes  into  the 
room! 

There  was  another  official  in  the  village  of  much 
higher  rank  than  the  uriadnik  and  with  even  greater 
powers  of  action.  It  was  the  zemsky  nachalnik. 
He  had  entire  jurisdiction  over  all  rural  institutions, 
administrative,  executive,  judiciary,  and  over  all 
matters  pertaining  to  the  individual  and  collective 
affairs  of  the  peasant.     He  could  depose  officials 


72    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

elected  by  the  mir,  annul  verdicts  of  the  local  courts 
and  substitute  his  own;  he  might  fine,  arrest,  punish 
transgressors  of  the  law  or  violators  of  his  will.  If 
peasants  ever  showed  a  disposition  to  rebel  against 
some  landed  proprietor,  he  had  them  flogged.  He 
was  recruited  from  the  nobihty,  and  quite  naturally 
strove  to  protect  the  interests  of  his  class.  And  like 
the  other  officials  he  never  missed  an  opportunity  to 
exploit  his  position  for  personal  profit.  .  If  he  had 
work  to  do  on  his  estate,  he  just  called  on  certain 
peasants  and  ordered  them  to  report  for  duty.  Of 
com'se  he  never  paid  them. 

Such  was  the  legal  and  social  position  of  the  peas- 
ant. He  was  isolated  from  other  classes  of  society; 
he  had  to  submit  to  the  rule  of  the  commune,  and  the 
commune  had  to  submit  to  the  rule  of  the  bureau- 
cracy and  the  dictates  of  a  horde  of  unscrupulous 
officials.  He  was  not  free  to  go  where  he  hked,  or 
to  do  what  he  pleased.  His  opportunity  for  advance- 
ment was,  therefore,  sadly  limited.  He  chafed  under 
these  limitations  but  he  could  not  help  himself.  He 
had  to  acquiesce. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER 

It  was  bad  enough  for  the  Russian  peasant  to  be 
kept  in  ignorance;  it  was  worse  still  to  be  syste- 
matically discriminated  against  legally  and  socially; 
it  was  worst  of  all  to  be  held  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
poverty.  From  ignorance  and  social  disability  he 
might  escape,  but  from  the  clutch  of  poverty  he 
could  not  extricate  himself.  It  held  him  firmly  in  its 
grasp  and  shaped  his  very  flesh  and  spirit.  And 
the  government  not  only  made  no  effort  to  remove 
or  loosen  this  clutch,  but  strained  its  energies  and 
ingenuity  to  tighten  and  deepen  it. 

Not  that  the  government  was  actuated  by  a 
desire  to  see  the  peasant  lacerated  by  material 
want.  It  hardly  needs  pointing  out  that  it  was 
decidedly  to  the  government's  advantage  to  pro- 
mote not  indigence  but  prosperity  in  the  village. 
But  the  landlords  dominated  the  government,  and 
what  they  were  interested  in  chiefly,  was  the  preser- 
vation of  their  precious  privileges,  which,  it  must  be 
remembered,  were  derived  from  their  mastery  over 
the  peasant.  Hence  to  protect  these  privileges 
after  freedom  was  granted  to  the  serfs,  it  was  nee- 


74    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

essary  so  to  limit  his  opportunities  for  economic 
advancement  that  he  would  continue  to  be  dependent 
upon  his  former  masters.  Consequently,  the  Eman- 
cipation Act  left  the  peasant  in  a  far  worse  con- 
dition materially,  than  he  was  under  serfdom. 

For  then  the  landlord  took  good  care  of  the  peas- 
ant. He  had  to,  if  he  had  his  own  welfare  at  heart. 
It  was  to  his  advantage  to  feed  the  serf  well,  clothe 
him  warmly,  house  him  comfortably  so  that  he  would 
work  better,  produce  more.  The  landlord  allotted 
to  each  peasant  an  area  of  land  large  enough  for 
him  to  raise  all  the  food  and  the  other  things,  hke 
flax  and  wool,  necessary  for  his  existence.  It  was 
a  hard  hfe  the  serf  lived;  he  had  no  individual  free- 
dom, no  opportunity  to  develop  his  faculties,  no 
other  aim  in  life  but  that  of  the  animal — to  work, 
eat  and  sleep,  and  he  was  entirely  at  the  mercy  of 
his  master.    But  he  was  never  hungry. 

With  the  coming  of  the  emancipation,  however, 
the  personal  interest  of  the  landlord  in  the  serf 
quite  naturally  disappeared.  The  landlord  was  now 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  preservation  of  his 
property-possessions.  At  one  time  there  was  even 
a  movement  among  the  landed  nobles  to  prevent 
any  allotment  of  land  to  the  peasant  after  the 
emancipation.  There  were,  however,  other  land- 
lords who  saw  a  menace  in  such  a  movement.  They 
reaUzed   that   freeing   the  peasant   without  giving 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  75 

him  a  chance  to  earn  at  least  part  of  his  living  from 
his  own  land,  was  like  placing  a  stick  of  dynamite 
under  their  own  houses.  They  argued  that  that 
would  lead  to  bloody  uprisings.  But  even  these 
more  practical  nobles  were  loathe  to  lose  substantial 
portions  of  their  estates,  and  they  fought  in  govern- 
ment committees  against  generous  allotments  to 
the  peasant.  They  were  stubbornly  opposed  to 
allowing  the  mouzhik  to  hold  the  share  of  land  he 
had  been  tilling  as  a  serf  for  his  own  use — a  share 
which  was  only  large  enough  to  grow  the  necessaries 
of  life.  In  other  words,  the  landlords  were  opposed 
to  providing  the  peasant  with  enough  land  for  his 
livelihood,  this  despite  the  fact  that  they  were  to 
receive  an  exorbitant  price  for  every  span  of  ground 
the  peasant  was  to  acquire.  And  for  a  very  good 
reason,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned.  Now  that 
they  would  no  longer  have  slave  labor,  they  would 
have  to  hire  help  to  cultivate  their  estates,  and  the 
only  help  available  was  the  freed  serf.  But  if  the 
latter  had  enough  land  to  furnish  him  a  hving,  he 
would  not  have  much  spare  time  to  work  outside, 
and  he  would  not  be  likely  to  sell  his  services  at  too 
low  a  price.  But  if  he  were  in  a  measure  to  depend 
for  his  livelihood  upon  outside  labor,  he  would  be 
glad  to  accept  whatever  wage  was  offered  to  him, 
and  labor  would  be  cheap. 
The  landlords  had  their  wish  fulfilled.    The  divi- 


76    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

sion  of  land  after  the  emancipation  was  effected 
in  full  accord  with  their  interests;  481,000  peas- 
ants ^  received  no  land  at  all.  They  were  chiefly 
the  dvorovye — the  domestic  help  of  the  landlords; 
550,000  received  less  than  one  dessyatin  (2.7  acres) 
per  masculine  soul.  These  were  the  so-called  pau- 
per's shares,  allotted  to  those  peasants  who  pre- 
ferred to  have  small  parcels  and  not  pay  any  redemp- 
tion fees,  rather  than  to  have  larger  ones  and  steep 
themselves  in  debt;  1,553,000  received  less  than  two 
dessyatins  per  soul.  In  all,  therefore,  two  and  one- 
third  million  men-serfs,  or  23.4  per  cent  of  all  that 
were  registered  on  the  estates  of  the  landlords, 
received  exceedingly  small  parcels  of  land  or  none 
at  all.  These  peasants  were  from  the  very  beginning 
of  the  emancipated  era  doomed  to  be  proletarians. 

Of  the  peasants  who  had  received  more  substan- 
tial allotments,  those  that  had  hved  on  the  estates 
of  the  nobles  fared  much  worse  than  those  who  had 
been  under  the  control  of  the  imperial  family  and 
the  state.  The  former  had  the  best  portions  of 
the  land  they  had  tilled  as  serfs,  especially  pasture 
and  forest,  sliced  off  from  the  shares  now  trans- 

1  There  were  two  classes  of  peasants,  those  who  had  been 
on  the  state  lands  and  those  who  had  been  serfs  on  private 
estates.  There  were  some  minor  differences  in  their  status 
before  the  emancipation.  After  the  emancipation  these  dif- 
ferences very  largely  disappeared. 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  77 

f erred  to  their  possession.  This  was  especiallj'^  the 
case  in  the  southern  and  southwestern  provinces, 
where  the  land  was  the  best  in  Russia.  In  21  out 
of  36  provinces  the  cuttings  amounted  to  26.2  per 
cent  of  the  original  holdings;  in  the  black  soil  re- 
gion these  cuttings  rose  in  places  to  40  per  cent. 
On  the  average  each  landlord's  male  serf  received  3.2 
dessyatins;  each  state  peasant  6.7  dessyatins;  each 
imperial  peasant  4.9  dessyatins,  giving  an  average  of 

4.8  dessyatins  for  each  of  all  emancipated  peasants. 
Thus  to  begin  with  when  the  peasant  was  freed 

from  serfdom  he  at  best  had  less  land  than  he  re- 
quired for  the  upholding  not  of  a  higher  but  of  the 
same  standard  of  living  he  had  maintained  during 
his  period  of  servitude;  and  not  only  was  his  allot- 
ment of  land  smaller  than  it  had  been  under  serf- 
dom, the  soil  was  of  poorer  quality,  the  very  best 
portions  were  cut  off  and  joined  to  the  estates  of 
the  landlords. 

In  subsequent  years  when  with  the  increase  in 
population  followed  divisions  and  subdivisions  of 
land  the  holding  of  the  individual  mouzhik  con- 
stantly diminished  in  size.  In  1861  European 
Russia  had  a  peasant  population  of  54,150,000 
peasants.  By  1916  it  had  almost  doubled.  During 
this  period  the  land-holdings  of  the  peasant  fell  from 

4.9  dessyatins  in  1861  to  3.3  dessyatins  in  1880,  to 
2.6  dessyatins  in   1900.     Many  peasants  had  lost 


78    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

all  their  land.  Either  they  had  rented  it  away  for 
long  periods  or  else  they  withdrew  from  the  mir 
entirely  and  devoted  themselves  to  working  for 
wages.  According  to  A.  Zolotareff,  director  of  the 
Central  Statistical  Committee  under  the  Ministry 
of  Interior,  there  were  in  Russia  in  1905,  2.2  million 
families  who  worked  on  land,  but  had  no  farms  of 
their  own.  They  constituted  fifteen  per  cent  of  all 
who  were  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits. 

In  the  same  year  in  forty-seven  provinces  of  Euro- 
pean Russia  out  of  the  11,956,876  peasant  households, 
23  per  cent,  had  less  than  five  dessyatiJis  per  house- 
hold, and  70  per  cent,  had  less  than  ten  dessyatins 
per  household,  whereas  according  to  the  computa- 
tion of  government  experts  the  average  family 
required  at  least  12.5  dessyatins  to  provide  it  with 
adequate  sustenance.  In  certain  provinces  the 
land  shortage  was  particularly  acute.  Such  were 
Kiev,  Podolsk,  Poltava,  Kursk,  Tulsk. 

This  ins^officiency  of  land  would  not  have  been  so 
widespread  nor  so  poignant,  if  the  surplus  popula- 
tion of  the  village  could  have  been  absorbed  by  the 
cities  and  industrial  centers.  But  Russia  is  woefully 
backward  industrially,  with  comparatively  few  large 
cities  and  flourishing  industrial  centers.  In  western 
Europe  during  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  with  the  growth  of  manufacturing,  cities 
increased  and  multiplied  rapidly.     Even  in  semi- 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  79 

feudal  Austria  the  city  population  had  increased 
from  19  per  cent  of  the  total  in  1843,  to  38  per  cent 
in  1900,  while  in  Russia  it  had  grown  from  10  per 
cent  in  1863  to  only  14  per  cent  in  1912.  The  fol- 
lowing table  shows  how  small  the  city  population  is 
in  Russia  compared  to  that  of  other  countries.  The 
figures  are  for  the  year  1912. 


Name  of 

Per  cent  of 

Per  cent  of 

country 

city  population 

rural  population 

England 

78 

22 

Germany 

56 

44 

United  States 

42 

59 

Italy 

26 

74 

Russia 

14 

86 

According  to  N.  P.  Oganovsky,  one  of  the  most 
searching  students  of  Russian  agrarian  problems, 
out  of  the  annual  increase  of  two  million  souls  in 
rural  Russia  the  cities  absorbed  only  about  350,000. 
The  remaining  1,650,000  had  to  remain  in  the  village 
and  struggle  for  a  living  by  working  on  constantly 
diminishing  shares  of  land  or  selling  their  labor  to 
anyone  willing  to  buy  it,  no  matter  how  small  the 
compensation. 

But  insufficiency  of  land  and  absence  of  city  mar- 
kets for  all  or  even  a  large  portion  of  the  surplus 
peasant  laborers,  were  not  the  only  conditions  which 
fostered  material  privation  in  rural  Russia.  Agri- 
cultural backwardness,  was  another  factor  that  con- 


80    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

tributed  lavishly  toward  the  destitution  of  the 
mouzhik.  Small  as  was  his  parcel  of  land,  by  apply- 
ing methods  of  intensive  cultivation  he  could  have 
substantially  enlarged  its  fertility  and  drawn  from 
the  soil  increased  quantities  of  food,  perhaps  suffi- 
cient to  provide  him  with  ample  nourishment.  That 
would  have  surely  been  a  happy  escape  from  want, 
sorrow  and  agony.  But  considering  the  conditions 
under  which  the  peasant  lived,  recourse  to  such  an 
expedient  was  entirely  out  of  the  question. 

To  begin  with  the  peasant  to  this  day  is  ignorant 
of  advanced  methods  of  farming.  It  was  in  the 
scheme  of  the  old  order  to  devote  the  bulk  of  its  re- 
sources and  efforts  to  outward  expansion  rather  than 
to  inward  development.  Consequently  the  old 
government  built  few  agricultural  schools  in  Russia, 
few  experiment  stations,  and  provided  few  experts  to 
advise  and  encourage  the  adoption  of  improved 
methods  of  tillage.  The  zemstvos,  it  is  true,  had  of 
their  own  accord  striven  to  supply  the  necessary 
knowledge  to  the  mouzhik,  but  they  lacked  finan- 
cial support  and  were  constantly  hampered  in  their 
activities,  so  that  the  result  of  their  efforts  is 
scarcely  discernible.  To  this  day  the  Russian  peas- 
ant follows  very  largely  the  same  methods  of  culti- 
vation his  ancestors  had  practiced  generations  be- 
fore him.  He  inherits  these  just  as  he  sometimes 
inherits  his  father's  boots  or  sheepskin  coat. 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  81 

Moreover  had  he  been  the  best  informed  man  in 
the  world  as  to  modern  ways  of  tilling  the  soil,  he 
could  not  have  put  his  knowledge  into  operation,  be- 
cause he  had  no  capital,  and  without  capital  he 
could  not  buy  plows,  seeders,  tractors,  fertilizers  and 
other  necessary  equipment.  The  government  made 
no  effort  to  provide  cheap  credit  for  farm-improve- 
ments. 

Besides,  under  the  best  of  circumstances  and  with 
the  best  of  intentions  the  mouzhik  had  no  incentive 
to  improve  his  land.  Owing  to  the  community  sys- 
tem of  ownership  prevalent  among  about  three- 
quarters  of  the  rural  population  in  Russia,  he  could 
not  claim  the  land  as  his  own  personal  property.  He 
was  paying  for  it,  but  after  all  it  was  not  his.  It  be- 
longed to  the  commune,  and  every  few  years  the 
commune  reapportioned  and  redistributed  the  land 
within  its  hmits  in  accordance  with  the  newly  cre- 
ated needs  caused  by  increase  in  population.  What 
was  Ivan's  this  year,  might  be  Stepan's  the  next,  and 
vice  versa.  What  object  would  there  be  for  Ivan  to 
invest  capital,  if  he  had  it,  and  labor  for  the  improve- 
ment of  the  fields  he  worked,  if  by  the  time  he  had 
improved  them  and  was  ready  to  reap  the  reward 
of  his  continued  and  painstaking  labors,  they  might 
be  transferred  to  his  neighbor?  Ivan's  sole  aim  was 
to  extract  from  the  land  all  the  wealth  he  could 
while  he  held  it,  and  the  next  occupant  had  to  shift 


82    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

for  himself  as  best  he  could.  Such  a  process  of  culti- 
vation was,  of  course,  detrimental  to  the  mouzhik  as 
well  as  to  the  nation  at  large,  for  it  only  tended  to 
exhaust  the  latent  fertility  of  the  soil  and  further  to 
impoverish  the  tiller  and  the  whole  nation. 

But  even  if  the  mouzhik  had  the  incentive  to  im- 
prove his  land,  he  could  not  do  it  advantageously 
under  the  communal  system  of  ownership.  He 
was  in  reality  a  slave  of  the  commune,  of  its  cus- 
toms, traditions,  institutions.  Theoreticallj''  the  mir 
strove  to  mete  out  equality  to  every  one  of  its  mem- 
bers, and  it  surely  was  equality  with  a  vengeance! 
It  did  not  parcel  out  a  contiguous  plot  of  land  to  the 
occupant  to  work  it  as  best  he  could  and  wished.  It 
assigned  to  each  menber  a  corresponding  share  in  all 
of  the  tracts  in  its  possession.  Thus  if  there  was  a 
strip  of  swamp  in  the  commune,  every  mouzhik  had 
a  share  in  it;  if  there  was  a  sandy  field,  a  stretch  of 
loam,  an  upland,  a  lowland,  rough,  smooth,  or  level 
land,  every  one  received  his  due  portion  in  each  seg- 
ment, so  that  in  the  aggregate  he  had  a  little  bit  of 
everything  and  not  much  of  anything,  like  a  diner 
in  an  American  plan  hotel.  If  the  land  was  more  or 
less  uniform  in  quality,  it  was  usually  divided  into 
three  parts  based  upon  the  three-field  system  of  cul- 
tivation in  vogue  in  Russia,  and  each  resident  or 
rather  member  received  his  due  share  in  each  part. 
Moreover,  everybody  in  the  village  had  to  work  his 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  83 

land  about  the  same  time,  so  as  to  release  or  block  the 
roadways,  whichever  was  desired,  and  to  throw  open 
or  shut  stubble  and  other  fields  for  the  pasturing  of 
cattle  or  horses.  Thus  everybody  in  the  mir  sowed 
rye  in  the  same  field,  wheat  in  the  same  field,  flax 
in  the  same  field  and  at  the  same  time.  One  did  as 
the  other,  and  all  did  alike,  to  the  detriment  of  each 
and  all.  That  was  the  law  of  the  mir,  as  irrevocable 
as  the  law  of  gravitation. 

Nor  was  this  all.  The  land  in  Russia  runs  in 
long  strips.  In  the  case  of  the  peasant  each  strip  is 
very  narrow,  anywhere  between  two  and  ten  yards 
in  width,  and  since  the  strips  do  not  all  lie  together, 
but  are  distributed  over  different  sections,  as  many 
sections  as  there  are  types  of  soil,  the  peasant  had  to 
lug  all  of  his  tools  from  one  field  to  another,  and 
journey  back  and  forth  often  with  horse  and  wagon 
whenever  this  or  that  crop  demanded  attention, 
thus  losing  a  prodigious  amount  of  his  own  and  his 
horse's  time.  The  strips  are  also  separated  from  one 
another  by  dead  furrows  or  ridges,  which  in  the 
aggregate  make  up  thousands  of  dessyatins  of 
fertile  soil  that  raise  nothing  but  weeds,  which 
spread  freely  to  nearby  fields,  contaminate  and  often 
ruin  crops. 

Viewed  from  whichever  viewpoint  one  chooses  the 
communal  form  of  land-ownership  in  the  Russian 
village,   in   the   form   in  which  it  had  developed, 


84    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

has  been  a  decided  drawback  to  the  mouzhik,  and 
has  contributed  substantially  toward  his  economic 
ruin.  The  manner  of  ownership,  the  lay  of  the 
land,  the  three-field  system  —  that  is  one  field  for 
winter  crops,  one  for  spring  crops  and  one  lying  fallow 
— all  of  these  have  tended  to  promote  inefficiency, 
extravagance  and  waste.  And  the  old  government 
did  nothing  to  guide  and  help  the  mouzhik  to  over- 
come these  obstacles  to  successful  farming.  True, 
in  1906  Stolypin  endeavored  to  break  up  communal 
land  ownership,  and  to  establish  homesteads,  but 
his  motive  was  so  treacherous,  his  method  so  crude, 
his  economic  aid  so  insignificant,  that,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  his  scheme  proved  an  abject  failure. 

Nor  do  we  get  a  cheerful  picture  of  things  when 
we  examine  into  the  methods  of  work  the  peasant 
pursues  in  the  tillage  of  the  land.  These  methods 
are  medieval.  Western  countries  have  long  ago  for- 
gotten what  they  were,  but  they  still  prevail  in  Rus- 
sia on  a  very  extensive  scale,  partly  because  the 
mouzhik  is  ignorant,  but  chiefly  because  he  is  too 
poor  to  substitue  for  them  newer,  easier,  more  effi- 
cient methods.  For  one  thing  the  mouzhik  is  not  at 
all  particular  about  the  quality  of  the  seed  he  uses. 
There  may  be  weeds  in  his  rye,  all  kinds  of  pernicious 
weeds,  yet  he  does  not  clean  them  out,  because,  as  a 
rule,  he  does  not  know  how.  The  seed  may  be  un- 
ripe, shrunken,  hardly  fit  to  put  into  the  soil,  but  he 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  85 

does  put  it  in.  He  has  to,  if  it  is  the  best  he  has 
raised.  Nobody  will  give  him  any  better,  and  he 
cannot  afford  to  buy  any.  Then,  too,  with  very  few 
exceptions  he  does  not  sow  with  a  machine,  but  by 
hand,  from  a  crib  slung  over  his  neck  or  from  an 
apron  tied  round  his  waist.  He  scatters  the  seed 
over  the  surface  of  the  field,  and  when  crows  come, 
and  they  are  never  tardy  in  coming,  they  pick  up  a 
good  share  of  it,  and  when  the  wind  blows,  it  sweeps 
a  good  deal  of  the  seed  into  furrows,  ridges  or 
neighboring  fields. 

Nor  does  the  peasant  fertilize  his  land  at  all  ade- 
quately. In  1916  according  to  the  report  of  the 
League  of  Agrarian  Reforms  the  peasants  had  put  on 
their  fields  22,763.4  million  pouds  of  stable  manure. 
It  takes  2,400  pouds  to  a  dessyatin,  if  it  is  scattered 
at  all  properly.  This  means  that  if  the  above  quan- 
tity of  manure  had  been  distributed  adequately,  it 
would  have  fertilized  only  9,500  dessyatins,  whereas 
the  area  of  land  seeded  in  1916  was  over  64  million 
dessyatins.  The  shortage  of  manure  comes  from  a 
shortage  of  both  stock  and  straw.  In  the  black  soil 
region  alone,  according  to  Maslov,  there  is  a  short- 
age of  ten  milhon  heads  of  cattle  and  eight  and  a 
half  milhon  heads  of  horses.  As  far  as  straw  is  con- 
cerned in  the  provinces,  where  there  is  little  or  no 
forest,  the  mouzhik  has  to  use  it  for  fuel,  and  what  he 
has  left  he  puts  into  his  garden,  for  a  good  garden  he 


86    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

must  have  above  everything  else.  In  some  places 
the  peasant  sweeps  the  streets  in  the  summer,  and 
uses  the  sweepings  for  fertiUzer.  But  the  amount 
gathered  in  this  manner  is  quite  insignificant. 

In  western  countries  the  lack  of  stable  manure  is 
made  up  by  the  plentiful  use  of  conamercial  fertilizer. 
But  in  Russia,  especially  among  the  peasants,  such 
fertihzer  is  scarcely  known.  During  the  last  years 
the  import  of  it  has  gradually  risen  from  12  million 
pouds  in  1909  to  27  million  pouds  in  1914.  But  even 
that  is  like  a  drop  in  the  bucket. 

Fully  as  lamentable  is  the  peasant's  lot  as  far  as 
technical  equipment  is  concerned.  To  this  day  in 
most  instances  he  has  no  adequate  implements  with 
which  to  work  his  land.  According  to  the  report  of 
the  Central  Statistical  Committee,  fully  half  of  the 
tools  the  peasant  used  in  1910  were  of  ancient  make. 
Only  about  52  per  cent  had  plows  of  a  modern  type — 
light  ones — that  do  not  descend  deep  into  the 
ground;  43  per  cent  used  sokhas — crude  plows  of 
wooden  frames  and  iron  points;  25  per  cent  pulverized 
their  fields  with  wooden  harrows — wooden  pecks  and 
wooden  frames;  70  per  cent  had  wooden-framed  but 
iron-pecked  harrows;  only  5  per  cent  could  boast 
of  modern  drags.  Disks  such  as  the  American  farmer 
uses  universally,  are  practically  unknown  in  the 
Russian  village. 

Not  only  does  the  mouzhik  possess  inadequate  and 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  87 

insufficient  implements,  in  most  instances  he  has  not 
the  power  necessary  to  put  to  creditable  operation 
the  crude  and  lumbering  machinery  he  does  possess. 
Engines  are  entirely  unkno'^Ti,  excepting  on  the  big 
landed  estates  of  the  nobility,  and  among  the  very 
wealthy  peasants.  And  the  scarcity  of  horses  is  ap- 
palling! In  1912,  31.5  per  cent  of  the  peasant  house- 
holders had  no  horses  at  all;  32.1  per  cent  had  only 
one  horse  per  household;  22.2  per  cent  owned  two 
horses  per  household,  and  only  14.2  per  cent  could 
pride  themselves  on  possessing  three  or  more  horses. 
And  what  horses  they  are!  The  type  is  perhaps 
the  most  inferior  in  Europe — short,  light,  scrawny, 
quite  incapable  of  arduous  labor.  And  no  wonder, 
for  the  most  part  they  are  not  fed  properly  or  suffi- 
ciently. In  summer  they  are  tm'ned  on  grass,  as 
soon  as  it  sprouts  out  of  the  ground — ^an  extremely 
poor  diet  for  a  work  horse,  making  him  ''soft," 
flabby,  inducing  profuse  perspiration,  short-wind- 
edness, and  rendering  him  susceptible  to  illness. 
The  American  farmer  will  seldom  allow  a  work 
horse  to  touch  grass  during  the  working  seasons  of 
the  year.  In  spring  and  at  other  occasions,  when 
the  work  on  the  farm  is  particularly  strenuous,  the 
mouzhik  feeds  his  horse  a  portion  of  grain,  about 
three  or  four  quarts  a  day — if  he  has  any  saved 
up.  On  the  whole  the  peasant  raises  httle  oats; 
lucky,  indeed,  is  the  mouzhik  who  has  an  abundance 


88    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

of  such  fodder!  Many  a  one  is  obliged  to  sell  his 
horse  in  the  fall  or  give  it  away  for  the  winter  just 
for  the  feeding.  In  many  sections  colts  are  killed  by 
the  thousands  to  save  them  from  starvation.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  scenes  I  witnessed  in  our  village  in 
autumn,  after  the  pastures  froze,  when  peasant  after 
peasant  led  his  prancing  colt  to  the  woods,  and  killed 
it  there,  leaving  the  carcass  on  the  ground  for  dogs 
and  wolves  to  fight  over.  I  remember  with  what 
dismay  and  chagrin  we  boys  talked  about  this 
"cruelty"  of  our  fathers,  and  many  a  time  wc  asked 
them  why  they  killed  "our"  colts — those  playful, 
timid  creatures  we  loved  so  much.  But  they  only 
grunted  a  rebuke  in  reply.  To  ourselves  we  vowed 
that  when  we  grew  up,  we  should  never  do  such  a 
horrid  thing.  And  yet — many  of  us  have  not 
kept  that  vow. 

How  then  can  a  mouzhik  work  his  field,  if  he  has 
no  horses  at  all,  or  if  he  has  only  one  horse,  which  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  condition  of  about  two-thirds  of 
the  peasantry  in  1912?  They  do  the  best  they  can. 
If  a  mouzhik  has  no  horse  of  his  own,  he  has  to  hire 
one,  which  is  rather  expensive,  and  often  exasperat- 
ingly  inconvenient,  for  no  horse  can  be  hired,  unless 
the  owner  has  first  attended  to  his  own  crops.  This 
means  that  the  peasant  who  depends  upon  hired 
horse-labor,  is  often  late  in  putting  in  his  seed  and 
gathering  his  harvests.    Besides,  with  one  horse  and 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FARMER  89 

a  poor  one  at  that,  which  is  usually  the  case,  it  is  im- 
possible to  do  justice  to  the  soil.  Deep  plowing  is 
out  of  the  question.  At  best  one  can  roll  over 
about  four  or  five  inches  of  soil,  thus  stirring  only 
the  upper  layer,  and  depending,  therefore,  for  a  crop 
upon  the  sustenance  the  plants  derive  from  this 
layer — shallow  as  it  is.  If  rain  happens  to  be  abun- 
dant in  summer,  there  is  usually  plenty  of  moisture 
in  the  upper  plowed  roll  of  the  soil.  But  if  rains  are 
scarce  during  the  growing  season,  the  water  that  has 
soaked  in  during  the  spring,  soon  dries  out:  the  soil 
where  it  is  clay  cracks;  plants  wilt  and  crops  burn. 

In  southern  Russia  the  peasant  who  has  no  horse 
of  his  OTVTTi  and  is  too  poor  or  else  cannot  find  one  to 
hu'e,  sows  his  crops  navolokom,  on  the  stubble,  and 
drags  it  in  with  a  cow.  If  the  land  was  well  plowed 
the  year  before,  he  is  likely  to  reap  a  fair  harvest. 
But  as  a  rule,  the  peasant  never  plows  his  fields  well, 
because  of  defective  plows  and  consequently  the 
mouzhik  who  sows  on  stubble,  seldom  reaps  a  sub- 
stantial harvest.  In  fact  in  most  cases  the  yield  is 
actually  less  than  the  amount  of  seed  used.  And 
the  result  is  detrimental  in  a  double  way:  it  dimin- 
ishes the  amount  of  food  for  stock,  which  leads  to  a 
reduction  of  the  quantity  of  stock,  and  with  a  les- 
sening of  the  animal  power  at  his  command,  the 
mouzhik  is  obHged  to  resort  to  sowing  on  stubble 
more  and  more.    If  he  has  no  stubble  land  of  his  own. 


90    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  .\ND  THE  REVOLUTION 

he  exchanges  for  it  a  strip  of  good  pasture  or  fallow 
land,  for  sow  he  must,  somehow,  somewhere. 

Because  of  all  the  conditions  stated  above, 
the  peasant  is  wholly  dependent  for  his  crop  upon 
atmospheric  conditions.  He  cannot  combat  a 
drouth,  he  cannot  control  a  flood,  he  is  helpless 
against  a  storm.  An  unexpected  and  unfavorable 
natural  phenomenon  plays  havoc  with  his  crops. 
More  than  any  other  tiller  of  the  soil  in  Europe  is  he 
the  slave  and  not  the  master  of  natural  forces. 

He  harvests  his  crops  very  largely  in  the  awkward 
and  wasteful  manner  in  which  he  sows  them.  He 
has  few  mowing  machines,  few  horse-rakes,  no  ted- 
ders, scarcely  any  stacking  apparatus,  or  horse-forks, 
such  as  the  American  farmer  possesses.  He  usually 
cuts  his  hay  with  a  straight  and  not  an  arched- 
handled  scythe;  rakes  it  by  hand  with  a  wooden  rake, 
loads  and  unloads  it  by  hand  wdth  a  long  w^ooden 
fork;  he  reaps  his  grain  mostly  with  a  sickle,  thrashes 
it  with  a  flail;  now  and  then  he  buys  a  thrashing  ma- 
chine in  partnership  with  neighbors,  but  this  ma- 
chine, driven  in  most  cases  by  horse-power,  does  not 
clean  the  thrashings:  winnowing  machines  are  rare, 
and  the  cleaning  is  done  by  hand.  The  peasant 
gathers  his  thrashed  product  into  a  pile  at  one  end  of 
his  barn,  sweeps  clean  the  barn  floor,  gets  down  on 
his  knees  with  a  small  wooden  scoop  in  his  hand,  dips 
the  scoop  into  tlic  pile,  and  flings  the  contents  vig- 


THE  PEASANT  AS  A  FAEMER 


91 


orously  to  the  other  end  of  the  floor — the  chaff  and 
straw  being  Hght  fall  to  the  ground  nearby  and  thus 
separate  from  the  grain.  It  is  a  clumsy,  wasteful 
process,  but  in  most  cases  it  is  the  best  the  peasant 
can  do. 

Considering  the  conditions  under  which  the  peas- 
ant is  compelled  to  labor  it  is  not  at  all  surprising  that 
compared  with  other  countries  his  harvests  are  very 
poor.  In  the  United  States  the  farmer  has  made  such 
remarkable  progress  in  the  adoption  of  methods 
which  enable  him  to  harness  the  forces  of  nature  to 
his  interests,  that  during  the  past  fifty  years  his 
yields  per  acre  have  doubled,  whereas  in  the  case  of 
the  Russian  peasant  they  have  fallen  off  substanti- 
ally. The  following  table  shows  the  pathetic  condi- 
tion of  the  Russian  farmer  compared  with  that  of  the 
farmer  in  many  other  countries,  as  far  as  crops  are 
concerned.  The  average  yield  per  hectare  ^  for  all 
grains  in  the  countries  named  below  is : 


Quintals  * 

Quintals 

Belgium 

21.1 

Uruguay 

12.4 

England 

20.2 

British  India 

12.1 

Norway 

19.7 

Spain 

11.8 

Japan 

19.0 

Austria 

11.4 

HoUand 

18.7 

Rumania 

10.5 

Denmark 

18.1 

Bulgaria 

9.5 

Germany 

16.8 

Italy 

9.4 

1  Hectare — ^2.471  acres. 

*  Quintal— 100  Kms.  or  220.46  lbs. 


92    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 


Sweden 

Argentine 

Canada 

United  States 

Hungary 

France 

Greece 


Quintals 
15.6 
14.5 
14.3 
13.6 
13.6 
13.2 
12.8 


Australia 
Algiers 
Serbia 
RUSSIA 


Quintals 

8.3 
8.2 
8.2 
6.4 


Out  of  twenty-five  agricultural  countries  Russia 
produces  less  per  unit  of  area  than  any  other! 

Such  is  the  lot  of  the  Russian  peasant  as  a  farmer. 
To  some  extent  his  condition  has  been  improved 
through  the  efforts  of  the  cooperatives  and  the  zem- 
stvos.  But  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  he  is  igno- 
rant of  the  contributions  of  science,  is  enslaved  to  the 
deadening  traditions  of  the  mir,  has  little  land,  lacks 
machinery,  lacks  horses.  No  wonder  that  year  after 
in  Russia,  perhaps  the  richest  agricultural  country  in 
the  world,  miUions  of  industrious  farmers  have  had  to 
face  starvation. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TAXATION 

The  peasant  had  to  pay  all  kinds  of  taxes,  direct 
and  indirect.  He  had  to  pay  a  poll-tax,  which  had 
existed  since  the  day  of  Peter  the  Great,  a  state  tax, 
a  zemstvo  tax,  a  local  community  tax,  and,  chief  of 
all,  the  redemption  fee.  This  fee  was  to  compensate 
the  landlords  for  the  land  they  had  lost  in  the  allot- 
ments that  had  been  made  to  the  peasant.  But  the 
value  of  the  land  under  consideration,  appraised  at 
the  then  prevailing  market  price,  was  689,000,000 
roubles,  whereas  the  price  fixed  by  the  emancipators 
was  923,300,000  roubles,  a  difference  of  nearly  a 
third  of  one  billion  roubles,  which  constituted 
nothing  else  than  a  ransom  the  peasant  was  obhged 
to  pay  for  the  dehverance  of  his  person.  As  V.  A. 
Lossitzky  expressed  it,  ''The  peasant  population 
was  forced  to  redeem  not  only  its  soil,  but  also  its 
own  personality;  it  had  to  pay  the  price  of  its  souls." 
As  a  matter  of  fact  it  paid  more  than  that.  ,  The 
government,  as  is  well  known,  collected  the  redemp- 
tion fee,  and  it  made  the  peasant  stand  the  entire 
cost  of  the  transaction,  and  in  addition  it  received 
from  him  big  sums  in  interest  and  in  fines  for  de- 


P4    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

layed  payments.  In  all  the  peasant  paid  for  the 
land  1,390,000,000  roubles,  or  just  about  twice 
what  it  was  actually  worth  at  the  time  it  was  sold, 
and  then  it  must  be  remembered  that  owing  to  the 
revolution  of  1905  the  government  was  compelled 
to  cancel  further  payments,  so  that  the  peasant  paid 
less  than  the  government  had  planned  to  extort  from 
him. 

As  far  as  the  peasant  was  concerned,  he  regarded 
the  redemption  fee  as  an  absolute  injustice.  He  was 
sure  he  would  receive  the  land  free,  and  he  did  not 
understand  why  he  should  be  made  to  pay  for  it.  He 
had  lived  on  it  since  days  immemorial  and  had  al- 
ways worked  it.  He  felt  it  was  his  by  all  the  rights  of 
possession.  In  places  he  rebelled  against  the  pro- 
posed fee  to  the  landlords,  but  in  the  end  he  had  to 
acquiesce  in  the  arrangement,  with  the  result  that  a 
few  years  after  the  emancipation  he  found  himself  in 
a  peculiarly  difficult  position,  drawing  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  line  of  starvation.  In  1877  Professor 
J.  E.  Janson  of  Petrograd  University  pointed  out  the 
fact,  much  to  the  astonishment  of  intellectual  Rus- 
sia, that  the  taxes  the  peasant  had  to  pay  exceeded 
the  net  income  he  derived  from  his  land.  In  1872 
the  former  state  peasants  of  the  province  of  Nov- 
gorod paid  in  taxes  the  entire  net  income  they  de- 
rived from  the  sale  of  their  farm  produce,  whereas 
the  serfs  paid  between  61  and  456  per  cent  above 


TAXATION  95 

their  net  income.  In  the  government  of  Petrograd 
the  tax  exceeded  the  net  income  by  34  per  cent;  in 
Moscow  by  105,  in  the  black  soil  region  from  24  to 
200  per  cent  for  former  serfs  and  from  30  to  148  per 
cent  for  state  peasants.  In  other  provinces  the 
difference  between  tax  and  net  income  was  equally 
high,  as  indicated  in  the  following  table: 

Excess  op  Tax  Above  Net  Income 

Percentage  for  state  peasants  For  serfs 

Tver  144  152 

Smolensk  66  120 

Kostroma  46  140 

Pskov  30  113 

Vladimir  68  176 

Vyatka  3  100 

In  every  case,  it  is  to  be  noted,  the  former  serfs 
were  the  heaviest  sufferers,  principally  because  they 
paid  correspondingly  higher  indemnity  fees  than  had 
the  state  peasants  and  had  received  smaller  allot- 
ments of  land. 

Since  this  was  the  situation  it  would  have  been 
of  decided  advantage  to  the  peasant  to  abandon  his 
land  entirely  and  become  a  wage  laborer.  He  would 
then  have  been  freed  of  the  necessity  of  paying  a  re- 
demption fee,  and  could  have  enjoyed  the  full 
amount  of  his  earnings  minus  certain  small  taxes. 
Many  a  peasant  would  no  doubt  have  been  glad  to 
flee  from  the  land,  but  he  was  anchored  to  it  by 


96    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

various  legal  and  social  restrictions.  If  he  was 
in  arrears  he  could  not  get  a  passport,  and  without 
a  passport  he  could  not  travel  far  from  his  home  in 
search  of  work,  and  it  was  not  always  easy  to  find  a 
suitable  and  well-paying  job  in  the  vicinity  of  one's 
home.  Then,  too,  if  he  renounced  his  right  of  loco- 
motion his  personal  property  was  disposed  of  at 
public  auction,  and  he  was  reduced  practically  to  a 
state  of  pauperism.  Moreover,  since  the  mir  was 
collectively  responsible  for  the  tax  of  each  individ- 
ual, it  was  not  likely  to  allow  liim  freely  to  shp 
out  and  shift  liis  burden  upon  its  already  heavil}'- 
laden  shoulders.  And  besides,  there  were  the  offi- 
cials, with  rods  in  hand,  empowered  and  ever  ready 
hterally  to  flog  the  taxes  out  of  a  dehnquent  peasant. 
Try  as  best  he  might  he  could  not  escape  the  finan- 
cial burden  that  was  thrust  upon  him. 

It  may  be  asked  how  could  the  peasant  exist  at 
all,  if  he  was  obliged  to  turn  over  to  the  state  treasuiy 
more  than  was  his  net  yield  from  the  land,  sometimes 
twice  as  much?  Of  course  it  was  difficult  and  would 
have  actually  been  impossible,  if  the  land  had  not 
been  rising  in  value,  and  if  he  had  not  supplemented 
his  meager  income  from  his  farm  with  earnings 
derived  from  wage  labor  and  the  home  manufacture 
of  various  articles  for  the  market.  And  when  these 
supplementary  earnings  did  not  suffice  to  make  both 
ends  meet,  the  peasant  felt  obliged  to  ''eat"  his 


TAXATION  97 

capital,  that  is,  to  sell  his  cow  or  horse,  or  else  to 
borrow  money  from  usurers.    But  more  of  this  later. 

As  far  as  the  govermiient  was  concerned  it  could 
not  remain  indifferent  to  the  constantly  growing 
impoverishment  of  the  peasant.  Something  had  to 
be  done  to  keep  him  from  sinking  into  a  state  of  pau- 
perism. Accordingly  upon  the  initiative  of  the  some- 
what Uberal  minister  Bunge,  the  excessively  heavy 
redemption  fee  was  slightly  reduced  in  amoimt  and 
the  antiquated  poll-tax  was  entirely  abolished.  That 
helped  the  peasant  somewhat,  but  it  created  a  deficit 
in  the  national  budget,  much  to  the  discomfiture  of 
the  minister  of  finance.  Thereupon  the  successor  of 
Bunge,  Vyshnegradsky,  while  realizing  the  impossl- 
bihty  of  restoring  the  direct  tax  to  its  former  level, 
resolved  to  replete  the  state  coffers  with  an  indirect 
tax  on  the  necessaries  of  fife.  The  scheme  worked 
magnificently  as  far  as  the  minister's  aim  was  con- 
cerned. Between  the  years  of  1885-1895  the  minis- 
ter of  finance  collected  through  the  indirect  tax  six 
times  the  amount  the  government  had  lost  through 
the  reduction  of  the  direct  tax. 

Count  Witte,  who  succeeded  Vyshnegradsky,  saw 
still  greater  possibihties  in  the  indirect  tax.  He  was 
by  far  the  most  energetic  and  resourceful  man  that 
ever  held  a  portfoho  in  the  cabinet  of  the  last  Czar. 
He  wished  to  modernize  Russia  economically,  to  in- 
troduce the  gold  standard,  to  extend  the  railway 


98    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

system,  to  stimulate  the  growth  of  industrialism,  all 
of  which  required  huge  sums  of  money,  and  to  obtain 
this  money  he  unceremoniously  increased  the  tariff 
on  articles  of  common  use  in  the  village.  In  1902  the 
tax  on  tea  was  three  times  as  high  as  it  had  been  in 
1880,  on  sugar  five  times  as  high,  on  petroleum  four, 
on  cotton  six,  on  copper  and  iron  about  the  same  as 
on  cotton. 

This  greatly  diminished  the  purchasing  power  of 
the  peasant.  He  was  not  only  prevented  from  rais- 
ing his  standard  of  living,  he  was  in  many  instances 
actually  obliged  to  lower  it.  Sugar  had  always  been 
a  luxury  to  him.  Now  it  was  even  more  so.  The 
same  was  true  of  tea.  Cotton,  the  only  cheap  goods 
a  peasant  could  buy,  now  leaped  so  high  in  price  that 
for  a  while  it  was  beyond  his  reach.  This  worked  a 
particular  hardship  on  the  women  in  the  village,  for 
they  were  the  chief  consumers  of  cotton  cloth.  It 
was  even  worse  with  iron.  Any  farmer  or  home- 
owner knows  what  an  absolute  necessity  iron  prod- 
ucts are  in  the  making  and  mending  of  agricultural 
implements,  and  the  building  and  repairing  of  houses 
and  barns.  The  peasant  had  to  contrive  to  get  along 
without  the  amount  of  iron  he  required  for  these 
purposes.  He  used  very  little  of  it  on  his  buildings, 
with  the  result  that  something  was  constantly  com- 
ing down,  or  breaking  loose,  and  required  repairs. 
His  wagons  he  made  almost  entirely  of  wood,  even 


TAXATION  99 

the  bolts.  Of  course,  such  wagons  could  not  carry 
big  loads,  especially  on  the  rough  muddy  Russian 
roads,  and  they  wore  out  quickly.  And  as  for  agri- 
cultural implements  we  have  seen  in  the  previous 
chapter  how  large  a  part  wood  plays  in  their  manu- 
facture. 

Witte  went  a  step  further.  He  made  the  sale  of 
vodka  a  government  monopoly,  and  thus  committed 
the  state  to  the  operation  of  an  institution  that  did 
so  much  to  degrade  the  peasant  and  further  to  aggra- 
vate his  economic  misery.  But  Witte  raised  a  big 
revenue,  the  amount  drawn  from  the  monopoly  of 
liquor  alone  soon  reached  the  stupendous  sum  of  one- 
third  of  the  total  of  the  national  revenue,  and  most 
of  this  one-third  came  from  the  peasant.  However, 
with  the  increasing  misery  of  the  peasant  and  the 
frequent  occurrence  of  famine,  millions  of  this  rev- 
enue had  to  be  diverted  to  feeding  the  starving  pop- 
ulation. 

Such  a  system  of  taxation  slowly  devoured  the 
possessions  of  the  peasant.  But  there  was  a  limit  to 
the  property  he  could  dispose  of,  and  still  be  in  a 
position  to  carry  on  his  household  activities.  He 
clung  desperately  to  his  last  horse  and  his  last  cow, 
as  one  would  cling  to  something  upon  which  his 
very  life  depends.  Consequently,  when  the  taxpayer 
came  around,  and  he  had  no  funds  of  his  own,  and  he 
felt  that  he  could  not  part  with  any  more  of  his  per- 


100    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

sonal  property,  he  resorted  to  the  expedient  of  bor- 
rowing money,  and  since,  until  the  coming  of  the 
cooperatives,  there  was  no  bank  in  the  village  or  any 
other  agency  to  advance  loans  upon  moderate  terms, 
he  had  to  apply  for  the  favor  to  the  rich  peasant  or  to 
the  landlord,  or  to  the  middleman,  neither  of  whom 
engaged  in  money-lending  for  the  sake  of  the  love  of 
his  destitute  neighbor.  These  money-lenders  al- 
ways sought  to  whip  out  all  the  profit  they  could 
from  their  clients,  and  they  were  not  particularly 
regardful  of  the  method  they  employed  to  attain 
their  end. 

Of  the  three  types  of  money-lenders  the  landlords, 
it  must  be  stated,  were  the  least  exacting,  and  that 
by  no  means  signifies  that  they  were  liberal;  the 
wealthy  peasant  was  the  most  grasping,  and  the 
middleman  was  not  always  inferior  to  him  in  prac- 
tices of  dishonesty  and  cruelty.  As  far  as  the  land- 
lord was  concerned  there  was  always  a  certain  for- 
mality and  an  outward  gentihty  about  him,  but  one 
can  think  of  no  redeeming  traits  in  the  kulack — 
literally  fist,  as  the  peasant  loanmonger  was  called. 
Every  village  had  its  kulacks.  They  were  ordinary 
peasants  who  by  a  streak  of  good  luck  or  through 
superior  ability  rose  to  a  position  of  affluence,  and 
their  only  aim  in  hfe  was  to  hoard  up  wealth  by  what- 
ever means  possible.  They  usually  fixed  their  own 
terms — interest  of  twenty,  fifty  or  one  hundred  per 


TAXATION  101 

cent  was  by  no  means  rare — and  the  borrower  had 
to  accept  them,  however  extortionate  they  might  be, 
for  he  had  to  pay  his  taxes  or  else  be  sold  out  and 
punished. 

It  would  take  many  pages  to  narrate  how  the 
kulack  plied  his  ignominious  trade,  and  how  he 
ravaged  the  poor  population  in  the  village.  Perhaps 
it  can  best  be  done  by  citing  a  concrete  instance. 
We  had  a  kulack  in  a  neighboring  village.  Michael 
was  his  name,  a  tall,  gaunt,  pale-faced  peasant  with 
a  long  russet  beard,  a  heavy  nose  and  prominent 
cheek  bones.  He  was  the  richest  man  in  the  village, — 
at  least  rumor  had  it  so,  though  one  could  not  tell  it 
from  the  way  he  lived.  His  house  looked  shabby,  and 
the  interior  was  as  ugly  and  filthy  as  that  of  the  or- 
dinary peasant.  His  sheep-skin  coat  was  greasy,  and 
he  wore  lapti — bast-shoes.  Neither  his  wife  nor  his 
children  seemed  in  any  way  to  indicate  that  they  were 
members  of  an  affluent  family.  In  summer  they 
walked  bare-footed,  like  the  other  peasants,  and 
their  Simday  clothes  were  neither  more  gaudy,  nor 
better  made,  nor  of  a  quality  superior  to  those  of 
their  neighbors.  And  that  was  rather  characteristic 
of  the  kulack  as  a  type — he  never  flaunted  his  wealth, 
not  even  to  the  point  of  visibly  raising  his  standard 
of  hving.  Often  he  was  nothing  more  than  a 
miser. 

When  tax-paying  time  came  our  poorer  peasants 


102    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

applied  to  Michael  for  loans.  They  preferred  Mi- 
chael to  the  Polish  landlord,  because  they  knew  him, 
they  could  talk  things  out  freely  with  him  in  the  pres- 
ence of  neighbors,  and  they  did  not  have  to  bother 
signing  so  many  incomprehensible  documents.  In 
fact  they  preferred  Michael  even  to  the  middleman, 
who  in  competition  with  Michael  often  advanced 
loans  on  more  moderate  terms.  Michael  gave  them 
the  money,  and  they  agreed  to  return  it  sometimes  in 
cash,  but  usually  in  grain  or  in  labor  on  his  land, 
which  he  had  rented  from  some  of  his  debtors  and 
from  the  nearby  landlord.  If  the  borrower  agreed  to 
pay  in  labor  the  wage-rate  was  fixed  at  the  time  the 
loan  was  made,  and  decidedly  to  Michael's  advan- 
tage. If  the  borrower  complained  that  wages  were 
sure  to  be  higher  all  over  the  neighborhood,  Michael 
endeavored  to  argue  him  out  of  his  assurance,  and  if 
he  failed  in  that  he  told  him  to  go  and  search  for  the 
accommodation  elsewhere.  If  the  debt  was  to  be 
paid  in  grain,  Michael  agreed  to  accept  it  at  the  cur- 
rent market  value,  minus  the  cost  of  transportation 
to  the  city-mill,  but  when  fall  came  and  the  grain  was 
brought  to  him,  he  usually  managed  to  cut  off  five  or 
even  ten  kopecks  on  the  poud  from  the  prevailing 
market  price.  And  then  Michael  weighed  the  grain 
on  his  own  scales,  and  many  a  peasant  expressed 
suspicion — of  the  scales!  All  around,  the  borrower 
was  at  the  mercy  of  the  kulack.    It  was  the  same  with 


TAXATION  103 

the  middleman.  He,  too,  sought  to  take  all  the 
advantage  he  could  of  his  patrons.  And  it  was  dan- 
gerous for  any  mouzhik  to  rouse  the  ill-will  of  the 
kulack  or  the  middleman.  Both  shrewd,  cunning, 
experienced,  had  a  thousand  ways  of  wreaking  ven- 
geance upon  an  enemy. 

Thus  we  see  that  credit  in  the  village  was  entirely 
in  the  hands  of  extortionists.  Now  and  then  there 
was  a  truly  honest  and  charitable  peasant  or  landlord 
who  offered  a  loan  to  the  mouzhik  upon  reasonable 
terms,  or  charged  no  interest  at  all.  But  such  kind 
souls  were  as  rare  as  honest  officials.  Since  about 
1908  the  credit  cooperatives  greatly  remedied  the 
situation  by  enabling  their  members  to  obtain  loans 
on  moderate  terms. 

Yet  despite  the  hardships  and  evils  entailed  in  bor- 
rowing money,  the  peasant  persisted  in  contracting 
loans.  He  had  to.  When  the  tax-collector  rapped 
at  his  door,  and  he  had  no  funds  of  his  own,  he  had  to 
obtain  them  somewhere.  He  borrowed  right  and 
left.  He  often  borrowed,  when  he  had  everything 
mortgaged — horse,  cow,  next  year's  crop,  even  his 
own  labor.  The  tax  had  to  be  paid.  Even  if  he  was 
in  a  position,  when  he  no  longer  worked  his  land, 
having  rented  it  away  for  years  in  advance  in  pay- 
ment of  loans  already  made,  he  was  still  responsible 
for  his  share  of  the  tax.  And  the  chinovniks  showed 
no  mercy.    They  did  all  they  could  to  wring  the  tax 


104    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

from  him.  They  flogged  or  jailed  him,  or  hired  him 
out  to  earn  his  tax,  or  auctioned  off  his  personal 
effects  and  left  him  entirely  destitute.  They  left  no 
stone  unturned  and  no  torture  within  the  limit  of 
their  powers  untried,  in  an  effort  to  whip  out  of  him 
his  debt  to  the  state. 

But  when  he  was  stripped  of  everything,  when  he 
had  sold  everything  he  could,  mortgaged  everything 
he  had  left,  and  still  lacked  the  sum  required  of  him, 
his  tax  remained  unpaid.  No  law,  no  threat,  no  tor- 
ture, could  squeeze  it  out  of  him,  when  he  was  pros- 
trate and  starving.  The  result  was  that  arrears 
in  taxes  continued  to  accumulate  with  ever-increas- 
ing regularity.  In  the  nineties  only  in  a  few  counties 
in  the  Samara  government,  the  officials  had  requisi- 
tioned peasant  property  to  the  amount  of  nine  mil- 
lion roubles  to  liquidate  arrears  in  taxes.  Yet  in 
1892  in  these  same  counties  the  arrears  constituted 
71.9  per  cent  of  the  sum  owed  to  the  government. 
In  certain  provinces  taxes  had  remained  unpaid  for 
five  years.  According  to  Milyukov  in  the  period  of 
1871-80  the  arrears  in  taxes  on  every  dessyatin  of 
land  the  peasant  held,  averaged  nineteen  cents;  in 
the  period  of  1881-90,  they  rose  to  twenty-four 
cents;  in  that  of  1891-1900 — to  fifty-four  cents, 
thus  showing  a  progressive  increase  in  debt.  Alexin- 
sky  has  shown  this  increase  in  the  table  at  top  of 
page  105. 


TAXATION                                    105 

Percentage  of  entire  amount  in  arrears 

1871-75 

22 

1881-85 

30 

1886-90 

42 

1891-95 

45 

Such  a  condition  of  indebtedness  reacted  dis- 
astrously upon  the  personal  ambition  of  the  peasant 
and  his  powers  of  initiative.  This  is  graphically 
described  by  Bekhtayev,  himself  a  landlord.  In 
speaking  of  the  peasant  of  the  central  provinces,  he 
says: 

*'A  further  diminution  of  the  property  of  the 
peasants  in  the  central  provinces  would  hardly  seem 
possible,  because  nothing  is  left  that  can  be  sold  (by 
the  authorities  to  pay  the  arrears).  Thus  the  peas- 
ant's contribution  to  the  exchequer  has  decreased  not 
by  law  but  by  force  of  circumstances.  The  peasants 
pay  now  only  what  they  can,  not  what  they  ought  to ; 
for  the  whole  amount  of  the  tax  can  in  no  way  be 
collected.  The  worst  of  it  is,  that  being  insolvent 
the  peasants  are  anxious  not  to  save  anything  that 
may  be  sold  for  taxes.  This  hopeless  state  of  poverty, 
unavoidable  and  unalterable,  takes  away  every  wish 
to  save  or  to  raise  the  standard  of  living,  even  if  a 
possibility  presented  itself.  The  practical  sense  of 
the  peasants  permits  them  to  improve  nothing  but 
the  buildings,  because  these,  whether  they  are  good 
or  poor,  cannot  be  sold  for  arrears.    And  so  the  peas- 


106    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ants  do  not  strive  to  earn  money  for  any  other  pur- 
pose of  private  economy,  and  if  they  acquire  some 
they  very  sensibly  prefer  to  squander  it,  rather  than 
to  hand  it  over  to  the  collectors." 

That  some  of  the  government  economists  reahzed 
the  destructiveness  of  the  prevalent  form  of  taxation, 
is  evidenced  in  the  following  report  made  in  1903  by 
Schwaneback,  a  member  of  the  commission  under 
Minister  of  Finance  Kokovtsev,  that  was  delegated 
by  the  Czar  to  make  an  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  the 
indigence  of  the  rural  population. 

"As  a  result  of  the  overtaxation  of  the  last  decade 
from  the  nine  central  and  eastern  provinces  of  Russia 
the  exchequer  received  only  407  milUon  roubles, 
instead  of  the  full  amount  of  450  millions.  These 
arrears  made  up  more  than  fifteen  per  cent  of  the 
assessed  sum.  It  is  evident  that  the  population  was 
actually  unable  to  pay  more  than  it  really  did.  In 
fact  they  did  not  even  pay  this  sum,  because  at  the 
very  time  the  government  was  obliged  to  spend  203 
milHons  for  feeding  the  same  population.  Thus  the 
exchequer  was  able  to  keep  only  half  of  what  it  was 
paid,  and  its  real  loss  was  44  per  cent  of  the  amount 
assessed.  The  overcharge  in  taxation  is  evidently 
aimless,  and  it  would  be  better  to  leave  the  money 
with  the  population." 

Only  in  1905  owing  to  the  outbreak  of  revolution 
was  the  direct  tax  of  the  peasant  considerably  re- 


TAXATION  107 

duced  by  the  cancellation  of  further  payments  of  the 
redemption  fee.  But  this  cancellation  was  like  the 
favor  of  a  man  who  gives  with  one  hand  and  robs  with 
the  other.  It  was  made  up  largely  in  further  in- 
creases of  the  indirect  tax,  which  in  1914  constituted 
60  per  cent  of  the  total  national  revenue. 

Thus  we  see  what  a  trial  it  was  for  the  peasant  to 
keep  up  the  payment  of  taxes.  It  would  seem  almost 
as  though  he  were  created  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
working  and  saving  and  suffering  in  order  to  keep  up 
the  flow  of  gold  into  the  state  coffers.  No  wonder 
that  he  grew  to  look  upon  the  payment  of  taxes  as 
upon  a  sort  of  torture  chamber — to  be  destroyed  at 
the  earliest  opportunity.  When  the  Czar  was  over- 
thrown, and  he  felt  that  the  new  government  was 
physically  impotent,  lacking  powers  of  coercion,  he 
stopped  in  many  places  to  pay  taxes.  It  seemed  to 
make  no  difference  to  him  that  the  new  government 
was  something  different  from  Czarism,  was  of  great 
promise  to  Russia,  and,  therefore  to  him.  He  had 
suffered  so  much  because  of  the  taxes  that  had  been 
exacted  from  him  in  the  past,  that  he  seemed  deter- 
mined to  put  an  end  to  their  continued  payment. 


CHAPTER  VII 
HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR 

Considering  the  smallness  of  the  income  the  peas- 
ant derived  from  his  land  and  the  exorbitant  taxes  he 
was  obhged  to  pay,  it  would  have  been  utterly  im- 
possible for  him  to  maintain  himself  aUve,  despite 
the  rising  value  of  his  land  if  he  had  had  no  oppor- 
tunity to  augment  his  earnings  through  other 
forms  of  employment.  As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was 
always  searching  for  such  employment.  He  was 
not  exacting  as  to  the  conditions  of  labor  or  compen- 
sation. He  could  scarcely  afford  to  be,  for  he  had  to 
keep  himself  occupied  all  the  time  at  something  that 
yielded  an  income,  no  matter  how  small.  It  was  a 
matter  of  self-preservation  with  him. 

What  were  the  forms  of  employment  open  to  him 
aside  from  his  work  on  his  own  land? 

First  there  were  the  so-called  home  industries, 
in  which  he  produced  for  the  market  flax,  Hnen, 
pottery,  tubs,  troughs,  pails,  barrels,  axe-handles, 
baskets,  chairs,  sleds,  wagons  and  a  variety  of  other 
things.  The  Russian  peasant  is,  as  a  rule,  a  skilled 
artisan,  the  men  excel  in  carpentering  and  the  women 
in  fancy  embroideries.     Because  of  the  industrial 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR        109 

backwardness  of  the  country,  there  was  considerable 
demand  for  home  manufactures  of  various  kinds. 

The  conditions  under  which  the  peasant  carried  on 
these  industries  were  conducive  neither  to  good 
health  nor  to  large  productivity.  He  worked  in  his 
home,  usually  during  the  winter  months  only,  and  we 
already  know  what  an  unsanitary  place  the  peasant 
home  is,  especially  during  the  cold  weather,  when  the 
windows  are  sealed  hermetically.  He  had  only  the 
crudest  of  tools  to  work  with.  He  made  slow  prog- 
ress, but  he  kept  assiduously  at  his  task,  working 
long  hours,  twelve,  fourteen,  sixteen  a  day,  his  wife 
and  children  helping  him.  It  was  a  sweatshop  in- 
dustry in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word. 

The  earnings  for  such  labor  were  quite  low.  It 
could  hardly  be  otherwise  in  the  absence  of  organ- 
ized markets,  good  highways,  adequate  transporta- 
tion facihties  and  in  the  presence  of  widespread  com- 
petition. The  buyers  were  sometimes  neighbors, 
sometimes  middlemen.  The  latter  missed  no  oppor- 
tunity to  drive  a  shrewd  bargain.  If  the  peasant  was 
hard  pressed  for  funds,  and  needed  money  in  advance, 
he  had  to  accept  whatever  the  middleman  offered 
him  for  his  wares.  In  later  years,  however,  the 
zemstvos  and  more  recently  the  cooperatives,  have 
sought  to  combat  this  evil  by  providing  facilities 
to  reach  a  good  market  and  to  purchase  raw  mater- 
ials without  the  aid  of  the  middleman. 


110    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  coming^  of  factories  further  lowered  the  remu- 
neration of  the  peasant  for  work  done  at  his  home 
bench  in  the  case  of  many  articles,  such  as  dry  goods 
and  furniture,  for  example.  A  peasant  woman  could 
not  weave  on  her  lumbering  loom  as  cheaply  as  could 
a  German  machine  in  a  shop.  A  man  could  not  make 
a  chair  as  cheaply  as  could  the  factory,  when  he  had 
to  do  all  his  work  by  hand  from  cutting  down  the 
tree  to  varnishing  and  polishing  the  finished  product. 
The  same  was  true  of  many  other  articles.  At  a 
conference  of  traders  in  home  manufactures  Lycenko, 
one  of  the  delegates,  stated  that  owing  to  factory 
competition  the  value  of  the  work  of  a  woman  at  the 
spinning  board  had  shrunk  to  five  kopecks  a  day. 
Only  wares  which  had  a  purely  artistic  appeal,  such 
as  fancy  pottery  and  embroideries  commanded  sub- 
stantial prices.  But  such  wares  had  a  very  limited 
market.  Yet  despite  the  low  price,  the  mouzhik  con- 
tinued to  manufacture  articles  in  his  home.  It 
afforded  some  compensation,  and  that  was  better 
than  nothing.  Only  in  the  so-called  commercial 
province  has  the  peasant  been  able  to  derive  a  sub- 
stantial income  from  his  home-made  products. 

Another  form  of  employment  which  constituted 
a  source  of  income  to  the  peasant,  was  agricultural 
labor.  The  landlords  had  their  big  estates  to  take 
care  of.  They  could  not  possibly  do  it  with  their  own 
labor,  even  if  they  had  tried — which  they  never  had — 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR        111 

because  of  the  feudal  notion  of  the  incompatibiUty  of 
manual  labor  with  the  dignity  of  a  gentleman.  They 
had  to  hire  all  their  workers  from  plowman  to  stable- 
boy.  This  afforded  numerous  jobs  for  the  peasant, 
who  hired  out  to  the  landlords  by  the  year,  by  the 
season,  but  mostly  by  the  day.  Opportunity  for 
such  labor  varied  with  different  sections.  In  some  it 
was  greater  than  in  others.  A  good  deal  depended 
upon  the  condition  of  the  crop — the  better  it  was, 
the  greater  the  demand  for  help  on  the  estates.  In 
some  places  a  peasant  could  find  abundant  work 
near  his  home,  in  others  he  had  to  travel  a  consider- 
able distance  to  find  a  market  for  his  labor.  In  the 
thickly  populated  black  earth  region  or  in  other 
provinces,  where  the  peasant  had  httle  land  and 
large  famihes  he  journeyed  in  search  of  work  to  the 
more  sparsely  settled  border  provinces. 

This  journey  usually  began  in  spring  before  the 
frost  was  quite  out  of  the  groimd.  Men,  women, 
boys  and  girls,  formed  into  parties,  and  journeyed 
together.  They  seldom  rode  on  boats  or  trains,  even 
if  they  Uved  in  a  region  where  such  conveyances  had 
already  come  into  existence.  They  walked,  mostly 
barefooted,  so  as  to  save  their  shoes,  many  with  stout 
canes  in  their  hands  and  heavy  packs  slung  over  their 
backs.  When  the  weather  was  good  and  the  roads 
dry,  the  journey  was  quite  tolerable,  even  though  the 
feet  of  the  pedestrians  ached  from  cuts  and  blis- 


112    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ters.  But  when  heavy  rains  came,  they  had  to  wade 
through  pools  of  slush  often  knee-deep,  then-  clothes 
soaked  in  rain  and  mud,  their  bodies  drenched  with 
sweat. 

They  took  little  money  with  them.  Some  had 
none  to  take.  They  lived  chiefly  on  dried  bread, 
which  they  carried  with  them  from  home.  Those 
who  had  cash  stopped  now  and  then  at  some  inn 
and  enjoyed  a  sumptuous  meal — of  shtchui  (veg- 
etable soup),  bread  and  tea.  Others  begged  for 
food,  when  their  provisions  ran  low,  and  still  others 
helped  themselves,  whenever  the  helping  seemed 
safe.  No  wonder  that  during  the  period  this  mi- 
gration continued,  the  authorities  in  many  villages 
through  which  it  passed,  found  it  necessary  to  double 
their  guards. 

The  journey  to  the  border  provinces  lasted  any- 
where between  three  days  to  half  a  month,  some- 
times a  whole  month,  depending  upon  where  the 
laborer  was  from,  and  where  he  was  going.  No  mat- 
ter how  keen  his  privations  and  discomforts  while 
on  the  road,  he  did  not,  as  a  rule,  turn  back,  im- 
less  smitten  with  rheumatism  or  some  other  serious 
ailment.  Upon  arrival  at  his  destination  he  searched 
for  the  buyer  of  his  "goods."  Sometimes  the  buyer 
was  a  representative  of  the  landlord,  sometimes  he 
was  an  employment  agent  or  a  contractor,  who  had 
undertaken  to  do  certain  jobs  on  various  estates. 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR        113 

Invariably  the  employment  agent  or  the  contractor 
took  advantage  of  the  ignorance,  creduUty,  and  de- 
fencelessness,  of  the  mouzhik,  and  lured  him  into 
fraudulent  bargains.  It  was  not  so  bad  with  the 
representative  of  the  landlord,  who  had  no  personal 
axe  to  grind.  During  the  period  that  the  immigrant 
laborer  was  waiting  for  the  buyer  to  take  him  to  his 
work-place,  he  lived  outdoors  in  the  market  place. 
If  it  rained  he  sneaked  for  shelter  into  some  wood- 
shed or  barn. 

The  treatment  he  was  accorded  on  the  estate  varied 
with  different  landlords.  He  worked  long  hours, 
fourteen  and  sixteen  a  day,  and  the  foreman  or  man- 
ager came  round  quite  often  to  prod  him  on  with 
loud  words  or  choice  epithets.  German  foremen,  of 
whom  there  were  very  many  on  Russian  estates, 
gained  a  particularly  notorious  reputation  for  their 
meanness  to  hired  help.  On  estates  that  were  pros- 
perous the  peasant  laborer  received  fairly  good  food. 
There  were  exceptions,  of  course.  On  the  farms, 
where  the  owner  was  in  straitened  circumstances  or 
where  the  crop  happened  to  be  poor,  the  table  fare 
was  pitiful,  so  much  so,  that  many  a  laborer,  by  no 
means  used  to  luxurious  dishes,  felt  constrained  to 
leave  before  his  term  of  service  had  expired  even  at 
the  risk  of  forfeiting  what  wages  the  landlord  owed 
him.  Often  a  landlord  intentionally  placed  poor 
food  before  the  hired  mouzhik,  or  resorted  to  some 


114    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

other  petty  method  of  exasperating  him,  so  as  to 
drive  him  into  quitting  his  job  and  thus  making 
him  forfeit  his  earnings.  The  worst  aspect  of  the 
hired  man's  hfe  on  the  estate  was  his  lodging  place. 
He  had  to  stay  in  a  barn,  shed,  in  some  yard  or 
orchard.  ^Vherever  a  landlord  had  a  special  Hving 
place  for  his  hired  help,  it  was  usually  a  barracks  with 
no  windows,  no  furniture  and  no  furnishings,  ex- 
cepting straw  on  the  floor  on  which  the  laborer 
slept  in  his  clothes.  Men  and  women  often  lodged  in 
the  same  barracks. 

As  far  as  the  law  was  concerned,  in  regulating  the 
relations  between  the  landlord  and  hired  help,  it 
considered  the  former  the  weaker  party  needing 
support  and  protection.  According  to  the  rules  of 
1863  regulating  the  relations  between  landlord  and 
hired  man,  the  landlord  had  a  right  to  collect  a  fine 
from  his  workingman  for  voluntary  absence  from 
work,  either  because  of  laziness  or  di'unkenness.  The 
amount  of  the  fine  was  usually  fixed  beforehand  in 
the  contract.  If,  however,  the  contract  did  not  pro- 
vide for  it,  the  amount  collected  as  a  fine  was  twice 
the  daily  wage  of  the  dehnquent  worker  for  each  day 
he  was  off  duty.  The  landlord  also  had  a  right  to 
discharge  the  worker,  if  he  found  him  rude  or  impu- 
dent to  any  member  of  his  family,  or  to  any  of  the 
managers  or  foremen  on  the  estate. 

These  rules,  however,  did  not  seem  to  satisfy  the 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR        115 

landlords.  They  complained  that  the  mouzhik  was 
spoiled,  that  he  loafed  too  much,  absented  himself 
too  often  from  work,  recklessly  violated  contracts, 
and  that  they  were  helpless  in  combating  his  bad 
habits  with  the  hmited  power  the  law  had  bestowed 
upon  them.  They  clamored  for  increased  authority 
to  deal  with  the  dehnquent  mouzhik.  Here  and  there 
was  a  landlord  who  told  complaining  colleagues, 
that  they  themselves  were  largely  to  blame  for 
the  unsatisfactory  labor  conditions  that  prevailed  on 
the  big  estates.  He  pointed  out  the  fact  that  in  then- 
effort  to  obtain  cheap  help  they  took  unjust  advan- 
tage of  the  mouzhik  by  advancing  to  him  a  certain 
sum  of  money,  when  he  was  hard  pressed  for  funds, 
and  making  him  sign  the  kind  of  a  labor  contract 
they  wished — a  contract  which  the  mouzhik  could 
not  be  expected  faithfully  to  fulfill.  He  also  pointed 
out  that  many  landlords  were  in  the  habit  of  not 
paying  their  men  when  they  agreed  to,  that  some 
held  wages  back  for  months  and  even  for  a  year,  and 
that  others  paid  m  checks,  which  could  be  imme- 
diately converted  into  ready  money  only  upon  the 
payment  of  a  fee  to  the  middleman.  Further,  he 
chided  the  landlords  for  their  maltreatment  of  the 
worker,  for  feeding  him  poorly,  beating  him,  in- 
sulting him,  and  doing  nothing  to  make  him  feel 
comfortable  during  his  leisure  hours. 
These  criticisms,  however,  had  no  effect  upon  the 


116    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

demands  of  the  big  body  of  landlords  for  further  and 
more  rigorous  measures  to  control  the  mouzhik  la- 
borer. In  their  hst  of  recommendations  to  the  gov- 
ernment they  even  urged  the  reintroduction  of 
corporal  punishment.  The  result  of  their  efforts  was 
the  promulgation  of  the  new  rules  of  1886,  which  were 
supposed  to  be  amendments  to  the  regulations  is- 
sued in  1863,  but  which  were  in  reahty  a  subversion 
of  those  rules.  For  rudeness  to  members  of  the  land- 
lord's family  or  to  managers,  the  landlord  now  had 
the  right  to  discharge  a  worker,  whereas  a  laborer  no 
longer  possessed  the  right  to  withdraw  from  a  con- 
tract if  he  was  insulted  or  beaten.  The  landlord  was 
no  longer  under  the  obligation  to  apply  to  the  Justice 
of  Peace  to  have  a  fine  imposed  upon  a  worker.  He 
could  levy  his  own  fine.  If  a  worker  violated  his 
agreement,  he  was  hable  to  criminal  prosecution,  but 
if  a  landlord  broke  his,  the  law  did  not  regard  it  as  a 
criminal  misdemeanor.  If  a  worker  deserted  the 
estate,  the  landlord  could  call  upon  the  police  to  lo- 
cate him  and  bring  him  back  by  force.  If  a  worker 
felt  outraged  against  the  treatment  of  the  landlord, 
he  had  a  right  to  sue  the  latter,  but  not  in  the  peasant 
court,  and  if  through  ignorance  he  ever  did  file  a 
charge  against  a  landlord  in  such  a  court,  the  land- 
lord quite  naturally  ignored  the  summons  and  with 
impunity.  To  sue  a  landlord  in  a  higher  (zemsky) 
court  necessitated  a  good  deal  of  formality,  the  hiring 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR       117 

of  an  "  advokat " — attorney,  the  signing  of  documents 
and  the  payment  of  a  fee  to  the  advokat  and  then 
the  chances  were  overwhelmingly  against  a  favorable 
verdict  for  the  complainant,  for  the  reason  that  the 
higher  com-t  was  dominated  by  the  landed  nobiUty. 
Moreover,  when  a  peasant  ventured  to  seek  justice  in 
such  a  court,  and  his  claim  was  rejected,  he  was  re- 
sponsible to  the  landlord  for  the  time  he  lost  in  suing 
him  and  for  the  damage  he  may  have  caused  in  leav- 
ing certain  work  undone.  Such  legislation  only 
tended  to  force  the  peasant  laborer  into  a  state  of 
voluntary  servitude. 

In  1902  the  landlords  went  a  step  further.  They 
complained  that  the  observance  of  so  many  holidays, 
on  which  the  workers  were  idle,  was  detrimental  to 
their  interests,  and  they  petitioned  for  the  lifting  of 
the  legal  ban  on  work  on  such  days.  To  meet  this 
complaint  an  edict  was  issued  on  the  10th  of  May, 
1904,  authorizing  voluntary  agricultural  labor  on 
Sundays  and  feast-days,  both  religious  and  civil,  and 
the  priests  were  enjoined  to  refrain  from  hindering  a 
worker  to  comply  with  the  new  ruling.  Shortly  after 
the  passage  of  this  regulation  the  landlords  in  their 
written  contracts  with  laborers  specified,  that  they 
were  to  work  on  Sundays  and  holidays,  if  it  should  be 
necessary.  This  affected  only  peasants  who  hired 
out  by  the  month,  season,  or  year.  But  there  were 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  such. 


118    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Wages  for  agricultural  labor  were  on  the  whole 
very  low.  It  could  hardly  be  otherwise  when  there 
was  an  abundance  of  idle  "hands"  in  the  village,  and 
where  to  keep  from  starvation  the  rural  worker  had 
to  contrive  to  be  always  employed.  In  different 
sections  under  different  conditions  wages  varied. 
The  closer  the  estate  was  to  a  railroad  or  to  a  com- 
mercial center  the  higher  were  the  wages.  In  the 
more  thickly  populated  peasant  regions  wages  were, 
of  course,  lower  than  in  the  more  sparsely  settled 
provinces.  Then,  too,  if  crops  were  unusually  good, 
pay  for  agricultural  labor  was  higher.  If  crops  were 
poor,  or  a  failure,  the  mcmzhik  was  glad  to  accept 
anything  that  was  offered  to  him.  He  was  in  such 
dire  distress  that  he  could  not  afford  to  reject  any  bid 
however  small  for  his  time  and  energy.  In  the  gov- 
ernment of  Poltava  between  the  years  1890-1900  the 
average  wage  by  the  day  was  33  kopecks,  by  the 
month  3  roubles  and  6  kopecks,  by  the  year  29  roubles 
and  46  kopecks,  whereas  in  the  United  States,  ex- 
cepting the  south,  for  the  year  1900  agricultural 
labor  commanded  17  dollars  a  month,  more  than  a 
Russian  laborer  in  Poltava  earned  in  a  year!  In  the 
provinces  of  Minsk,  Grodno,  Wilno,  Kovno,  Mohil- 
yev,  Vitebsk,  Smolensk,  Viatka,  Perm,  Kursk,  Orel, 
Tula  Ryazan,  Tambov,  Voronezh,  Saratov,  Simbirsk, 
Penza,  Kazan  Ufa,  Samara,  Kherson,  Kiev,  Podolsk, 
Volhynya,  Kharkov,  Cemigov, — in  other  words  in  27 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR        119 

other  provinces,  wages  were  either  sHghtly  lower  or 
about  the  same  or  sHghtly  higher  than  in  Poltava  dur- 
ing the  period  of  1890-1900.  According  to  the  table 
prepared  by  the  United  States  Secretary  of  Agri- 
culture in  1892,  and  as  given  by  Peter  Maslov,  the 
average  annual  wage  for  farm  labor  in  various  coun- 
tries was  as  follows : 


Great  Britain 

770  (in  francs) 

United  States 

1250 

France 

625 

Holland 

500 

Germany 

450 

Italy 

250 

India 

150 

Russia 

153  (according  to  reports  of  landlords) 

The  Russian  farm  laborer  received  only  three 
francs  a  year  more  than  his  Hindoo  brother,  despite 
the  fact  that  owing  to  differences  in  climate  and  cus- 
toms the  Russian's  requirements  involved  a  larger 
expenditure  of  money  than  did  those  of  the  Hindoo. 

During  the  first  decade  of  this  century  wages  for 
agricultural  labor  mounted  upward  but  not  in  pro- 
portion to  the  rise  in  the  prices  of  necessary  com" 
modities  and  land-rent,  the  latter  of  which,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  swallowed  a  goodly  portion  of  the 
mouzhik^s  earnings  from  all  sources.  The  following 
table  prepared  by  Dr.  Simon  Blank  and  based 
upon  reports  of  the  zemstvos,  shows  the  comparative 


120    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

scale  of  wages  at  various  periods  in  each  of  44  prov- 
inces. 


Wages  pek  Day  in  Kopecks 


MALE  WORKERS 

FE^LA.LE  WORKERS 

With 

Without 

With 

Without 

Provincet 

board 

board 

board 

board 

GO 
00 

1-H 

0 
0 

CO 

Ci 

0 

0 

0 
00 
00 

0 
0 

GO 
1 — 1 

0 

0 

Oi 
00 

0 

00 

0 

I— 1 

GO 

00 

0 
0 

CO 

0 

0 

"co" 

00 

GO 

T— 1 

0 

00 

T— ( 

00 

GO 

I-H 
"50 

"0" 

GO 
1—1 

47 

61 

CO 
00 

21 

00 

T— 1 

22 

0 

I-H 

26 

CO 

T-H 

29 

0" 

0 

00 

I-H 

31 

05 
I-H 

Vologda 

"39 

~36 

~6 

"38 

Olonetz 

38 

44 

51 

56 

57 

70 

21 

25 

29 

34 

37 

45 

St.  Petersburg 

42 

48 

57 

58 

58 

77 

27 

30 

35 

37 

39 

42 

Novgorod 

34 

38 

46 

49 

50 

62 

21 

23 

27 

31 

32 

40 

Pskov 

34 

34 

39 

45 

45 

53 

21 

21 

23 

28 

28 

35 

Vilno 

26 

28 

36 

37 

36 

49 

18 

18 

22 

26 

24 

33 

Grodno 

? 

25 

32 

29 

29 

42 

? 

? 

? 

19 

19 

27 

Kovno 

31 

33 

45 

47 

47 

66 

19 

21 

27 

31 

30 

39 

Mohilev 

29 

32 

40 

38 

40 

51 

IS 

18 

23 

24 

24 

32 

Minsk 

25 

31 

38 

33 

36 

47 

17 

? 

22 

22 

24 

32 

Vitebsk 

33 

35 

42 

43 

45 

57 

19 

21 

25 

27 

28 

35 

Smolensk 

33 

35 

45 

44 

45 

57 

19 

21 

26 

27 

29 

36 

Vladimir 

38 

44 

58 

51 

58 

76 

19 

23 

31 

28 

32 

43 

Moscow 

37 

43 

53 

48 

56 

70 

19 

22 

28 

26 

30 

38 

Kaluga 

30 

35 

45 

40 

44 

62 

16 

20 

25 

23 

26 

35 

Tver 

35 

39 

51 

45 

48 

66 

21 

24 

32 

28 

32 

41 

Jaroslav 

47 

47 

63 

60 

61 

79 

26 

28 

38 

36 

37 

52 

Kostroma 

37 

43 

55 

46 

53 

70 

22 

25 

32 

28 

34 

42 

Vyatka 

26 

30 

37 

35 

39 

50 

16 

19 

23 

22 

26 

33 

Perm 

34 

35 

45 

46 

46 

59 

20 

20 

27 

30 

29 

38 

Kursk 

26 

27 

37 

35 

33 

48 

16 

18 

24 

21 

23 

31 

Orel 

24 

25 

35 

32 

33 

42 

15 

15 

20 

20 

20 

27 

HOME  INDUSTRIES   AND  WAGE-LABOR 


121 


Wages  per  Day  in  Kopecks — Continued 


MALE  WORKERS 

FEMALE  WORKERS 

With 

Without 

With 

Without 

board 

board 

board 

board 

Promm9S 

CO 
00 
■—1 

o 

Ci 
00 

o 
o 
o 

OC 

C5 

00 

I— 1 

o 

0 

GO 
00 

05 

00 

C5 
1—1 

0 
00 
00 

0 
0 
00 
1—1 

0 

CO 
00 

T— 1 

CO 
1—1 

o 
o 

i-^ 

CO 

1—1 

o 
o 

1—1 

00 

00 

1—1 

CO 

0 

T— 1 

00 
1—1 

0 
00 

g 

Tula 

Yi 

30 

40 

36 

37 

"51 

15 

~15 

21 

To 

20 

27 

Ryazan 

28 

30 

41 

38 

39 

53 

13 

15 

20 

19 

20 

27 

Tambov 

23 

26 

34 

33 

34 

43 

14 

15 

19 

18 

19 

24 

Voronezh 

27 

28 

40 

35 

37 

51 

16 

18 

24 

20 

23 

32 

Saratov 

31 

32 

41 

44 

39 

52 

17 

17 

22 

22 

23 

29 

Simbirsk 

28 

25 

38 

38 

31 

50 

14 

13 

20 

20 

18 

28 

Penza 

23 

22 

33 

31 

31 

43 

13 

13 

18 

18 

17 

25 

Kazan 

28 

28 

33 

36 

38 

43 

17 

17 

20 

22 

23 

28 

Nizhni- 

Novgorod 

32 

36 

45 

42 

51 

60 

18 

19 

24 

26 

26 

33 

Ufa 

27 

25 

35 

35 

34 

47 

17 

16 

23 

22 

21 

31 

Samara 

31 

30 

42 

38 

36 

54 

17 

17 

23 

22 

22 

30 

Bessarabia 

40 

36 

43 

51 

46 

58 

28 

25 

33 

37 

33 

42 

Kherson 

31 

34 

38 

41 

42 

50 

21 

24 

29 

29 

32 

38 

Taurida 

39 

46 

50 

54 

65 

66 

27 

29 

32 

34 

39 

46 

Jekaterinoslav 

29 

34 

47 

39 

45 

64 

IS 

22 

31 

27 

30 

44 

Don  region 

37 

47 

51 

? 

? 

68 

23 

24 

33 

? 

30 

44 

Podolsk 

26 

27 

31 

32 

32 

37 

18 

20 

24 

22 

24 

30 

Kiev 

25 

26 

33 

32 

34 

40 

18 

20 

25 

24 

25 

31 

Volhynya 

? 

24 

29 

32 

30 

40 

? 

16 

19 

20 

21 

26 

Kharkov 

28 

28 

40 

37 

36 

50 

17 

20 

27 

25 

25 

35 

Tshernigov 

26 

27 

37 

35 

35 

50 

16 

18 

23 

24 

23 

33 

Poltava 

26 

26   35 

33 

33 

44 

17 

19 

24 

23 

24 

32 

122    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Agricultural  labor  was,  indeed,  cheap  in  Russia, 
so  cheap  that  in  the  long  run  it  proved  ruinous  even 
to  a  good  many  landlords.  It  caused  them  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  norm  and  standard  of  agricultural 
technique  on  their  farms,  and  they  did  not  seek  to 
introduce  modem  machinery  and  to  institute  scien- 
tific processes  of  cultivation.  Why  should  they,  when 
human  labor  was  so  comparatively  inexpensive,  and 
when  there  was  always  an  abundance  of  it?  In  con- 
sequence the  farms  of  these  self-satisfied  landlords 
deteriorated,  the  soil  wore  out,  productivity  slumped, 
and  they  sank  deeper  and  deeper  in  debt.  Econom- 
ically cheap  labor  was  a  curse  to  every  element  con- 
cerned, even  to  the  government,  which  had  to  bolster 
the  impoverished  land-owning  nobles  with  frequent 
and  generous  loans  to  save  them  from  total  ruin. 

The  peasant,  of  course,  was  the  chief  sufferer.  He 
was  not  even  always  successful  in  finding  a  buyer 
for  his  labor,  because  there  was  not  enough  work  on 
the  big  estates  for  all  the  -peasants  that  were  looking  jar 
jobs.  In  winter  there  was  never  a  heavy  demand 
for  laborers  on  the  estates  of  the  landlords,  and  in 
summer  when  crops  were  poor,  and  under  Russian 
methods  of  cultivation  failure  of  crops  was  no  rare 
occurrence,  there  were  not  many  jobs  to  be  had. 
But  even  when  crops  were  bountiful  there  was  not 
enough  work  for  all  the  idle  hands  in  the  village.  In 
21  provinces  in  Central  Russia  out  of  five  milhon 


HOME  INDUSTRIES  AND  WAGE-LABOR        12S 

available  farm  proletarians  in  the  summer,  not  more 
than  two  and  a  half  milUons  could  find  places  to 
work.  In  1909  there  were  according  to  Alexinsky 
seven  million  workers  in  rural  Russia  who  were  idle 
a  good  portion  of  the  year,  and  yet  seventeen  million 
souls  depended  upon  their  labor  for  support. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES 

There  were  a  number  of  other  alternatives  to 
which  the  peasant  might  resort  to  augment  his  in- 
come. For  one  thing  he  could  emigrate — leave  his 
village  and  start  on  a  hunt  for  work  anywhere  it 
could  be  found,  in  the  city,  in  a  foreign  country,  or 
in  some  unsettled  part  of  Russia,  such  as  Siberia 
and  Central  Asia. 

Emigrating  to  the  city  would  have  been  least  diffi- 
cult and  least  expensive.  But  as  has  ah'eady  been 
pointed  out  in  a  preceding  chapter  there  are  com- 
paratively few  cities  in  Russia,  so  few  that  at  most 
they  can  absorb  not  more  than  one-fifth  of  the  an- 
nual increment  in  the  rural  population.  Only  when 
big  industries  are  developed  in  Russia  will  it  be  pos- 
sible for  the  peasant  to  find  sufficient  work  in  the 
city.  Thousands  of  peasants  who  have  journeyed 
to  the  city  in  the  hope  of  finding  employment  there, 
having  had  to  borrow  money  from  usurers,  or  to  sell 
a  much-needed  cow  or  horse,  or  hog,  to  obtain  the 
funds  for  the  trip,  were  dismally  disappointed  upon 
reaching  their  destination.  They  could  find  no  place 
to  work  and  had  to  return  home,  sometimes  on  foot, 
begging  their  way  along. 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  185 

Emigration  to  a  foreign  country  likewise  offered 
no  satisfactory  settlement  of  the  problem  of  unem- 
ployment in  the  Russian  village.  In  the  first  place 
the  trip  to  a  foreign  country  was  fraught  with  many 
difficulties,  both  legal  and  financial.  The  prospective 
emigrant  was  obliged  to  procure  a  special  passport 
from  the  governor  of  the  province.  Since  he  was 
himself  either  ilUterate  or  else  entirely  inexperienced 
in  the  manner  of  filing  an  application  for  such  a 
permit,  he  was  under  the  necessity  of  engaging  an 
attorney,  and  that  involved  considerable  expense. 
In  certain  cases  if  the  applicant  was  within  three 
years  of  militaiy  age,  he  could  not  get  a  passport  at 
all.  It  was  not  impossible,  however,  to  leave  the 
country  without  a  passport,  if  one  had  the  fee  to 
pay  to  an  agency  which  by  arrangement  with  the 
frontier  guards,  smuggled  the  emigrant  across  the 
border.  There  were  numerous  such  agencies  in 
Russia.  It  was  chiefly  through  them  that  political 
suspects  and  other  disaffected  persons  managed  to 
escape  abroad.  Then  to  embark  upon  a  trip  to  a 
foreign  country  was  an  expensive  enterprise  for  a 
peasant.  It  cost,  for  example,  about  one  hundred 
dollars  to  come  from  Russia  to  this  country  in  the 
steerage,  not  a  big  sum  to  an  American,  but  a  fortune 
to  a  mouzhik.  If  he  was  poor,  he  had  to  borrow  it 
from  the  kulak  or  middleman,  and  we  have  already 
learned  what  extortionists  these  money-lenders  were. 


126    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  government  did  not  protect  the  peasant  from 
the  rapacity  of  loan  sharks. 

Then  there  was  the  problem  of  where  to  emigrate? 
None  of  the  Em^opean  comitries  welcomed  inmii- 
grants,  not  a  large  influx  of  them.  China  and  Japan 
were,  of  course,  out  of  the  reckoning  and  AustraUa 
and  Africa  were  scarcely  heard  of  in  rural  Russia. 
There  remained  the  American  continent.  The  word 
emigration  in  fact  implies  a  journey  to  America,  for 
few  people  in  Russia  ever  thought  of  starting  out  in 
search  of  opportunity  in  a  foreign  land,  until  the 
fame  of  America  as  a  place  of  untold  riches  and  un- 
heard of  possibilities  spread  among  the  masses. 

It  was  only  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighties  of  the 
past  century  that  there  began  a  wave  of  emigration 
of  noticeable  and  ever-swelhng  dimensions  from 
Russia  to  America.  The  Jews  led  in  the  exodus. 
The  Poles,  the  Finns,  the  Lithuanians  and  other  op- 
pressed peoples  followed.  The  letters  these  emigrants 
were  writing  home,  the  sums  of  money  they  were 
sending  to  friends  and  relatives,  made  the  name  of 
America  popular  in  Russian  cities  and  from  there 
this  popularity  spread  to  the  villages,  and  stirred 
many  a  mouzhik  into  a  desire  to  seek  his  fortune  in 
the  much  talked-of  and  far-away  America.  Since 
the  Japanese  war  many  Russian  peasants  have  come 
to  this  continent,  chiefly  to  the  United  States,  yet 
not  in  numbers  sufficient  to  reheve  the  stress  of  pov- 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  127 

erty  and  unemployment  at  home.  According  to 
official  Russian  figures  between  1904-1913  about  two 
million  Russians  left  their  native  land,  but  most  of 
them,  we  should  remember,  were  Jews,  Poles  and 
members  of  other  subject  peoples.  It  is  impossible 
to  estimate  just  what  was  the  number  of  peasants 
who  arrived  on  this  continent  during  the  above- 
mentioned  period,  but  it  surely  did  not  exceed  half 
a  million,  an  insignificant  number  compared  to  the 
increase  of  the  population  in  rural  Russia  during  this 
interval. 

Emigration  to  America,  therefore,  despite  its  in- 
viting prospects  did  not  and  could  not  provide  any 
appreciable  amelioration  to  the  constantly  accumu- 
lating misery  of  the  Russian  peasant. 

There  remained  Russia's  own  unsettled  regions, 
Hke  Siberia  and  Central  Asia,  to  which  the  surplus 
population  of  the  village  could  emigrate.  In  many 
ways  these  countries  were  the  best  and  most  desir- 
able places  to  which  the  Russian  peasant  could  go. 
After  all  though  they  might  be  far  away  from  his 
home  village,  they  were  part  of  Russia,  where  the 
Russian  language  was  spoken,  and  despite  the  pres- 
ence there  of  primitive  peoples  and  the  absence  of 
even  those  crude  marks  of  civilization,  to  which  he 
had  been  accustomed  in  his  native  village,  they  did 
not  seem  so  far  away  as  America.  Besides  there  the 
peasant  could  find  what  he  understood  best,  and 


128     THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

wanted  most — land!  According  to  Professor  Mig- 
ouline  there  are  one  and  a  quarter  billions  of  dessyor- 
tins  of  land  in  Siberia  and  314  million  dessyatins  in 
Central  Asia,  vast  portions  of  which  could  be  made 
available  for  agricultural  and  stock-raising  purposes. 
How  the  proper  utilization  of  these  vast  areas 
would  relieve  the  congestion  and  ever-growing  mis- 
ery of  the  peasant  can  best  be  judged,  when  we  re- 
flect, that  European  Russia,  which  has  an  acreage  of 
415  milhon  dessyatins,  supports  120  milhon  peasants, 
whereas  Siberia  has  only  a  population  of  ten  and 
Central  Asia  eight  milUons.  Of  course  proportion- 
ately there  is  not  as  much  available  land  in  Si- 
beria and  Central  Asia  as  in  European  Russia, 
and  in  any  computation  of  the  possibihties  of 
colonization  in  these  regions  proper  allowance  must 
be  made  for  that.  But  much  of  the  land  there 
can  be  made  available,  and  if  that  were  done 
vast  masses  of  peasants  could  settle  there  and  be 
contented. 

One  would,  therefore,  imagine  that  the  government 
would  strive  to  facihtate  emigration  to  Siberia,  and 
there  were  so  many  ways  in  which  the  government 
could  make  itself  serviceable  to  the  prospective 
pioneer.  It  could  for  one  thing  make  it  cheap  and 
easy  for  him  to  obtain  a  passport;  it  could  offer  finan- 
cial help  to  those  who  needed  it;  it  could  estabUsh  a 
network  of  information  bureaus,  where  the  prospec- 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  129 

tive  emigrant  could  learn  of  the  conditions  in  the  new 
country,  the  lands  that  were  most  available,  the 
easiest  way  of  reaching  them,  and  many  other  things 
that  might  be  of  help  to  him.  It  could  also  build  a 
chain  of  relief  stations  along  the  road.  It  could  do  a 
multitude  of  things,  but  it  did  not,  even  though  the 
colonization  of  these  sparsely  inhabited  countries 
would  have  been  of  decided  profit  to  the  government, 
not  only  in  reducing  indigence  and,  therefore,  enlarg- 
ing the  tax-paying  capacity  of  the  peasant  in  Euro- 
pean Russia,  but  also  in  the  income  it  could  derive 
from  new  settlers  in  new  and  flourishing  communities. 
Instead,  however,  of  faciUtating  emigration  to  the 
new  countries,  the  government  had  for  a  long  time 
done  all  within  its  power  to  hamper  it.  An  ukase 
issued  on  July  25,  1889,  stated  that  ''all  persons  who 
emigrate  without  having  previously  obtained  per- 
mission from  the  Minister  of  Interior  and  the  Min- 
ister of  Crown  Lands,  shall  be  sent  back  in  charge  of 
the  proper  authorities  to  the  communities  in  which 
they  are  registered."  And  yet  those  who  did  apply 
for  such  permission  waited  for  months  before  a  reply 
reached  them,  and  then  not  many  were  favored 
with  the  proper  authorization.  In  several  provinces 
by  an  act  passed  in  1896  a  peasant  was  even  for- 
bidden to  begin  disposing  of  his  household  goods 
preparatory  to  his  departure,  unless  he  could  show 
to  the  officials  that  he  had  a  sum  of  300  roubles  in 


130    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

cash.  The  reason  offered  for  this  ruling,  which  the 
stupidest  mouzhik  could  easily  evade  by  borrowing 
money  for  the  occasion  from  a  neighbor,  was  that 
the  government  desired  to  prevent  the  emigration 
of  those  who  had  not  sufficient  means  to  make  the 
journey  in  comfort! 

The  real  reason  the  government  had  set  itself 
against  emigration  to « the  new  countries  was  the 
same  that  had  actuated  it  in  the  passing  of  the  agri- 
cultural labor  laws — a  desire  to  maintain  economic 
prosperity  and  stability  of  the  landowning  class.  The 
departure  of  a  large  number  of  peasants  to  Siberia 
and  Central  Asia  would  have  operated  to  the  injury 
of  the  landlords  in  a  double  way — it  would  have  re- 
duced the  supply  of  available  farm  help  and,  there- 
fore, would  have  caused  a  rise  in  wages,  and  it  would 
have  also  reduced  the  number  of  renters  and,  there- 
fore, forced  down  the  price  of  rent. 

Yet  despite  the  interference  of  the  government, 
the  peasant  persisted  in  emigrating  to  the  unsettled 
regions  in  search  of  a  new  home  and  a  better  hfe.  He 
first  began  to  leave  for  Siberia  soon  after  the  emanci- 
pation, in  small  numbers,  at  the  rate  of  about  2000 
a  year.  Early  in  the  eighties  with  the  growth  of  the 
misery  in  the  European  Russian  villages  there  was  a 
noticeable  increase  in  the  mmiber  of  emigrants,  and 
in  the  following  years  this  increase  swelled  as  shown 
in  the  table  at  top  of  page  131 : 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  131 


Year 

Number  of  emigrants  to  Siberia 

1881-82 

74,000 

1890 

43,378 

1891 

82,150 

1896 

202,302 

1897 

86,575 

1898 

205,646 

1899 

223,981 

1900 

230,000 

1901-05 

68,000  average  for  each  year 

1905-10 

401,000 

1911-15 

203,000 

Not  all  of  those  who  went  to  the  new  country  re- 
mained there.  Many  found  conditions  so  severe,  that 
they  felt  obliged  to  return  to  the  old  home.  Between 
1898-1909  an  average  of  10.4  per  cent  wandered  back 
to  European  Russia.  In  1912  the  number  of  the  re- 
turned emigrants  from  Siberia  was  unusually  large, 
28.5  per  cent,  because  it  was  growing  increasingly 
difficult  to  find  suitable  places  for  settlement.  There 
was  still  an  abundance  of  land  in  Siberia  and  in 
northern  Manchuria,  but  it  had  to  be  improved,  and 
that  required  an  army  of  workers  and  considerable 
capital,  which  the  peasant  did  not  have  and  could 
not  obtain.  Consequently  a  large  number  of  peas- 
ants who  had  heard  of  the  vast  areas  of  vacant  and 
fertile  land  in  Siberia,  and  had  sold  off  their  posses- 
sions and  wandered  there  with  their  families,  were 
painfully  disappointed  upon  their  arrival  at  the 
much-longed   for   destination.     They   found   there 


132    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

deserfs  and  swamps,  infested  with  plagues,  and  im- 
penetrable forests,  far  from  railroads,  highways  and 
any  marks  of  civilization.  They  tramped  from  place 
to  place  in  a  desperate  endeavor  to  discover  a  suitable 
plot  of  ground  for  settlement.  Many  of  them  per- 
ished from  cold,  hunger  and  disease.  Many  others 
struggled  back  to  their  native  villages,  starved, 
ruined  and  homeless. 

Emigration  to  Siberia,  therefore,  while  a  blessing 
to  hundreds  of  thousands  of  peasants,  having  enabled 
them  to  acquire  a  fair  amount  of  property,  to  build 
good  homes,  and  to  enjoy  a  considerable  degree  of 
prosperity,  could  not  under  the  old  regime  offer  de- 
liverance to  a  large  number  of  them.  Only  when 
a  progressive  enterprising  government  comes  to  di- 
rect the  destinies  of  the  Russian  people,  a  government 
that  will  spare  neither  money  nor  energy  to  make 
the  now  uninhabitable  regions  of  Russia's  unsettled 
possessions  suitable  for  human  abode,  a  government 
which  will  drain  the  swamps,  clear  the  forests,  irrigate 
the  deserts,  lay  new  railroads,  open  new  mines, 
build  new  industries,  only  then  will  Siberia  and  Cen- 
tral Asia  and  Turkestan  afford  Uving  space  to  millions 
of  new  settlers. 

There  remained  another  expedient  to  which  the 
peasant  could  resort  in  his  search  for  relief  from 
misery— buying  and  renting  land.  By  increasing 
his  allotment  either  through  purchase  or  rental  he 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  133 

could,  it  would  seem,  increase  his  earning  power  and 
ward  off  starvation  and  pauperism.  Of  course  he 
always  searched  for  new  land,  and  never  missed  an 
opportunity  to  take  possession  of  it,  either  for  per- 
manent or  temporary  use,  if  it  was  at  all  possible  for 
him  to  do  so.    But  — 

To  buy  land  it  was  first  of  all  necessary  to  have 
either  money  or  credit,  and  the  ordinary  peasant 
who  owned  less  land  than  was  required  for  his  self- 
support,  had  neither.  The  peasant  land  bank  estab- 
lished in  1883  for  the  sole  purpose  of  helping  the 
peasant  to  buy  new  land,  did  not  help  the  poor  peas- 
ant, for  it  advanced  loans  only  to  apphcants  who 
possessed  a  substantial  amount  of  property,  from 
twelve  to  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  price  of  the 
purchased  acreage.  Besides,  prices  for  land  were  in- 
ordinately high  for  two  reasons.  First,  those  who 
owned  big  tracts  of  land,  the  landlords,  the  mon- 
asteries and  the  crown,  were  not  particularly  eager  to 
part  with  any  considerable  portions  of  their  land- 
possessions,  and  secondly  with  the  abolition  of  serf- 
dom other  elements  of  society,  like  the  merchants, 
who  had  not  formerly  engaged  in  agriculture,  now 
began  to  invest  heavily  in  land.  In  fact  in  the  first 
years  after  the  emancipation  the  merchants  bou^t 
more  land  than  had  all  the  peasants  in  forty 
provinces  in  European  Russia.  Between  1863-94 
the  first  purchased  an  acreage  to  the  value  of  745 


134    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

million  roubles,  and  the  latter  to  the  amount  of  only 
524  million  roubles. 

Of  all  the  land  the  peasants  bought  between  1865- 
1895,  81.5  per  cent  was  acquired  by  the  larger  land- 
owners. The  average  peasant,  therefore,  derived 
practically  no  help  from  the  peasant  land  bank.  But 
even  the  wealthier  mouzhik  soon  found  himself  so 
heavily  entangled  in  financial  difficulties  that  he 
could  not  extricate  himself  from  them.  It  came 
about  in  a  most  natural  manner.  Since  the  revolu- 
tion which  followed  the  Russo-Japanese  war  the 
government  offered  more  substantial  help  to  peasants 
who  qualified  for  loans.  It  not  only  appropriated 
larger  sums  for  their  credit,  it  also  opened  for  sale 
large  areas  of  crown  land  and  acted  as  agent  for  the 
landlords  in  their  transactions  with  the  peasants, 
chiefly,  it  must  be  noted,  for  the  sake  of  insuring 
to  the  sellers  a  good  price  for  their  land.  Between 
the  first  of  January,  1906,  and  the  first  of  January, 
1916,  the  peasant  land  bank  disposed  of  9,461,003 
dessyatins  of  land  at  an  indebtedness  to  the  peasant 
of  1,398,224,507  roubles.  The  price  of  the  land  was 
very  high,  averaging  in  the  period  of  1911-1915  as 
much  as  131.6  roubles  a  dessyatin,  about  three  times 
as  high  as  it  had  been  in  the  years  of  1883-1890, 
though  income  from  land  during  this  interval  had  not 
increased  to  the  same  degree.  But  since  it  was  the 
best  the  peasant  could  do,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  make 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  135 

extensive  purchases.  He  wanted  land.  Price  did 
not  seem  to  disturb  him  very  much,  excepting  when 
he  had  to  make  payments.  Then  he  scurried  and 
bustled  about,  and  when  he  could  not  scrape  together 
the  required  sum,  he  made  no  payments,  with  the 
result  that  arrears  to  the  land  bank  continued  to 
mount  higher  and  higher,  as  shown  in  the  following 
table : 


Year 

Amount  of  arrears  in 

roubles 

Percentage  of 
debt 

1911 

9,071,900 

21.3 

1912 

13,135,800 

26.1 

1913 

15,382,800 

27.2 

1914 

18,414,200 

30.1 

1915 

33,685,000 

51.6 

1916 

46,525,400 

68.5 

At  best,  therefore,  the  acquisition  of  land  through 
purchase,  because  of  the  conditions  governing  eligi- 
bility for  credit  at  the  Peasant  Bank,  and  because  of 
exorbitant  prices,  could  offer  only  limited  help  to  a 
very  limited  number  of  peasants.  As  far  as  the  poor 
peasants  were  concerned  they  were  in  no  position  to 
buy  land. 

But  what  of  renting  land?  On  the  whole  it  was 
even  less  advantageous  than  buying.  Rent  was  ex- 
cessively high,  because  the  demand  for  leases  was 
inordinately  large.  And  in  this  instance  the  well-to- 
do  peasant  was  again  at  a  decided  advantage  over 


136    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

his  poorer  neighbor.  He  rented  land  only,  when  he 
felt  that  the  income  would  yield  a  profit.  Otherwise 
it  was  more  remunerative  for  him  to  hire  out  during 
his  leisure  days  and  work  for  wages.  Usually  be- 
cause he  was  in  a  position  to  pay  in  advance,  he 
could  obtain  a  lease  at  a  lower  rate  and  for  a  num- 
ber of  years,  thus  avoiding  the  necessity  of  making  a 
bargain  every  year,  and  running  the  risk  of  having 
the  rental  fee  raised.  The  poorer  peasant,  however, 
rented  land  under  any  circumstances,  wherever  and 
whenever  he  could.  He  rented  land  even  if  he  knew 
beforehand  that  the  returns  would  not  any  more  than 
compensate  him  for  his  labor.  He  did  not  seek 
profit.  He  was  content  with  wages.  Because  he  could 
not  pay  in  advance  he  paid  a  higher  fee,  and  could 
obtain  a  lease  for  only  one  year,  so  that  the  landlord 
had  a  chance  to  raise  the  rental  every  year.  Still, 
the  poor  peasant  persisted  in  renting  land,  even  when 
his  income  yielded  no  more  than  low  wages  in  the 
form  of  straw  or  pasture  for  his  cows,  and  even  when 
the  rental  fee  exceeded  the  income.  He  was  so  hard 
pressed  economically  that  he  stopped  at  nothing  to 
lease  a  strip  of  land.  He  borrowed.  He  mort- 
gaged his  stock,  sold  his  implements,  pawned  his 
labor  in  advance,  ran  into  arrears,  heavier  and 
heavier  every  year,  and  continued  to  rent  land. 
Like  a  gambler  he  was  always  hoping  that  something 
would  happen,  a  banner  crop  or  high  prices,  which 


THE  OTHER  ALTERNATIVES  137 

would  redeem  him  from  his  ever-increasing  indebt- 
edness and  poverty.  And  yet  there  was  not  nearly 
enough  land  to  supply  the  demand  for  leases.  In  all 
the  peasants  rented  about  twenty-five  million  dessy- 
atins  a  year,  on  the  whole  a  small  area  for  a  popula- 
tion of  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  million  peas- 
ants. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT 

1.  Political 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Russian  peasant 
before  the  Revolution  of  March,  1917.  He  was  de- 
hberately  squeezed  into  a  vise  and  the  clamps  were 
constantly  tightened  round  him.  Until  1861  he  was 
kept  in  serfdom;  when  he  was  freed,  he  was  given 
little  land;  he  was  obliged  to  pay  extortionate  prices 
for  this  land;  he  was  held  in  ignorance;  he  was  denied 
rights  of  citizenship;  he  was  made  a  slave  of  the  mir, 
the  state  and  the  prey  of  a  horde  of  rapacious  officials; 
in  every  way  he  was  hampered  in  his  efforts  to  better 
his  condition.  He  was  looked  upon  not  as  a  human 
being  with  sensibilities,  tastes,  desires,  wants,  that 
merited  consideration  and  required  satisfaction,  but 
as  an  inferior  creature,  fit  only  to  serve  others.  Wliat 
could  be  more  illustrative  of  the  truth  of  this  state- 
ment than  the  laws  that  were  passed  to  regulate  the 
conditions  of  agricultural  labor,  which  practically 
made  the  landlords  masters  of  their  peasant  laborers, 
or  the  laws  restricting  emigi-ation  and  binding  the 
peasant  to  the  village,  even  when  he  had  nothing  to 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  139 

do  there,  except  to  welter  in  filth  and  poverty,  all  for 
the  purpose  of  maintaining  a  vast  supply  of  cheap 
labor  and  a  big  army  of  profit-yielding  renters?  As 
conservative  a  wTiter  as  E.  J.  Dillon,  says,  ''The 
peasantry  was  no  more  than  a  wealth-creating  ma- 
chine for  the  behoof  of  the  ruling  classes,  and  the 
rulers  took  so  little  thought  of  their  own  interests, 
that  they  failed  to  keep  the  machinery  properly  lu- 
bricated or  in  smoothly  running  working  condition." 

The  results  of  these  systematic  repressions  are  sad 
enough.  One  can  see  them  in  the  village,  in  the  filth 
and  sloth  that  abounds  inside  and  outside  of  the 
peasant  homes;  one  can  read  them  in  the  census  re- 
ports of  the  Russian  government  and  in  the  bulky 
tones  of  zemstvo-sta^tistiGs;  one  can  hear  them  in  the 
everyday  language  of  the  peasant,  in  his  songs, 
sayings  and  prayers.  When  asked  how  he  is  getting 
on,  the  peasant  would  shrug  his  shoulders,  and  say, 
"Like  a  fish  on  ice,"  or  '4ike  a  fly  in  tar." 

The  brutal  fact  is  that  the  Russian  peasant  has 
been  starving.  Try  as  hard  as  he  might,  he  simply 
could  not  make  both  ends  meet.  Since  about  1875, 
scarcely  a  year  has  passed  but  in  some  one  or  series  of 
provinces  hunger  visited  the  peasant  districts  as 
regularly  as  snow,  and  lingered  even  longer,  v  In 
1891-1892  no  less  than  thirty  milUon  peasants  in  the 
rich  black  soil  region  were  stricken  with  famine,  which 
resulted  in  the  virtual  extinction  of  many  villages. 


140    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

True,  there  was  a  crop-failure  in  that  region  in  the 
years  mentioned.  But  even  in  years  of  abundant 
yields  the  average  peasant  did  not  have  enough  to 
eat  or  else  had  to  contrive  to  live  on  foods  that  did 
not  possess  the  nutritive  elements  the  body  requires. 
In  1899,  1902,  and  1906,  famines  on  a  large  scale 
again  assailed  many  peasant  districts,  and  devastated 
many  villages.  According  to  A.  Maress,  in  1897, 
70.7  per  cent  of  the  peasant  population  did  not  pro- 
duce enough  food  for  their  sustenance;  20.4  produced 
just  enough  food  for  themselves  and  stock,  and  only 
8.9  per  cent  had  harvested  a  surplus  of  agricultural 
products.  According  to  Milyukov  the  yields  in  grain 
on  peasant  lands  slumped  during  the  first  forty  years 
after  the  emancipation  to  88  per  cent  of  what  they 
had  been  under  serfdom,  and  grain,  especially  rye,  it 
must  be  remembered,  is  the  chief  article  of  nourish- 
ing food  in  the  peasant's  diet.  Not  only  did  the  peas- 
ant raise  less  grain,  he  had  to  sell  more,  so  as  to  keep 
down  the  constantly  mounting  pile  of  debts,  which 
means,  that  he  had  to  compel  himself  to  reduce  to  a 
minimum  the  consumption  of  the  most  nourishing 
food  he  produced.  Milj^ukov  figures  that  the  peasant 
averages  sixteen  pouds  of  bread  a  year,  whereas  the 
soldier  was  allowed  by  the  government  twenty-nine 
pouds  a  year.  Having  less  bread  to  eat  the  peasant 
began  to  consume  more  potatoes,  three  times  as  much 
as  he  had  in  the  first  years  after  the  emancipation. 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  141 

Potatoes  are  quite  filling  and  dull  the  pangs  of  hun- 
ger, when  a  sufficient  quantity  has  been  consumed, 
but  they  do  not  provide  the  body  with  the  necessary 
tissue-building  elements.  JMeat,  too,  the  peasant  had 
to  use  more  sparingly,  and  also  milk  products,  for 
the  number  of  cows  in  his  possession  diminished 
constantly — one-tenth  between  1870  and  1900. 

No  wonder  there  is  so  much  illness  in  the  Russian 
village,  and  the  rate  of  mortality  keeps  increasing 
instead  of  diminishing  as  in  other  countries.  At  the 
end  of  the  eighteenth  century  Russia's  death  rate  was 
20  per  thousand,  and  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  it  was  35  per  thousand,  twice  as  high  as  in 
the  United  States.  And  no  wonder  also  that  in 
many  sections  one-third  of  the  children  born  in  the 
village  do  not  survive  their  first  year. 
Said  Saltykov,  Russia's  gifted  satirist : 
''Why  does  our  peasant  go  in  bast  shoes  instead  of 
leather  boots?  Why  does  such  dense  and  wide- 
spread ignorance  prevail  throughout  the  land?  Why 
does  the  mouzhik  seldom  or  never  eat  meat,  butter  or 
even  animal  fat?  How  does  it  happen  that  you  rarely 
meet  a  peasant  who  knows  what  a  bed  is?  Why  is  it 
we  all  discern  in  all  the  movements  of  the  Russian 
mouzhik  a  fatahstic  vein  devoid  of  the  impress  of 
conscience?    Why,  in  a  word,  do  the  peasants  come 

into  the  world  hke  insects  and  die  hke  summer  flies?" 

« 

There  are  critics,  Russians  and  foreigners,  who  in 


142    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

reply  to  the  questions  of  Saltykov  have  said,  that  the 
peasant  himself  is  to  blame  for  his  misery,  that  he  is 
what  he  is,  because  he  is  lazy,  shiftless,  extravagant, 
that  he  indulges  in  drink  too  much,  and  spends  too 
lavishly  on  factory-made  clothes  and  hats  and  other 
articles  of  apparel,  which  drain  his  meager  resources 
uselessly.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  when  Hquor  was  on 
sale  in  Russia,  the  peasant  consumed  a  good  deal  of 
vodka,  that  he  often  even  sold  a  much-needed  sack 
of  grain  and  pawned  his  sheepskin  coat  to  satisfy 
his  craving  for  alcohol.  It  must  be  remembered, 
however,  that  the  government  did  everything  within 
its  power  to  lure  him  into  spending  his  money  in  its 
vodka  shops.  The  peasant  did  not  drink  in  moderate 
quantities  every  day.  He  drank  by  spasms,  and  in 
''gulps"  not  beakers  but  bottles  at  a  time,  and 
usually  on  Sundays  and  hohdays,  when  he  did  not 
work.  He  went  to  church,  and  from  church  to  the 
vodka  shops,  which  opened  as  soon  as  church  serv^- 
ices  were  over!  Sundays  and  holidays  were  the  days 
on  which  the  peasant  gorged  himself  with  vodka, 
and  the  government  could  easily  have  prevented 
this  dissipation  by  keeping  closed  the  vodka  shops 
on  these  days.  But  the  government  wanted  rev- 
enue, and,  therefore,  flaunted  temptation  before  the 
mouzhik^s  eyes. 

It  is  true,  also,  that  the  peasant  was  beginning  to 
buy  factory-made  materials  for  his  clothes  ia  ever- 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  143 

increasing  quantities,  not,  however,  because  he  was 
growing  extravagant  in  his  desire  to  ape  the  city  pop- 
ulation in  dress,  but  because,  as  Milyukov  points 
out,  he  was  really  economical,  and  wanted  to  use  the 
cheapest  possible  cloth  for  his  garments — cahco  or 
something  as  low-priced  which  was  worth  less  per 
yard  than  the  homewoven  cloth. 

As  for  the  alleged  laziness  of  the  peasant,  it  is 
scarcely  more  than  a  legend.  Anyone  that  has  ever 
been  in  a  Russian  village  and  seen  the  peasant  at 
work  with  his  crude,  Imnbering,  inefficient  imple- 
ments, knows  what  a  hard-working  person  he  is. 
See  him  in  the  field  bent  with  a  sickle  over  his  grain, 
or  knee-deep  in  a  swampy  meadow  swinging  a  heavy 
straight-handled  scythe,  under  a  scorching  sun;  or 
see  him  in  a  stuffy  barn  swinging  a  flail  from  early 
morning  until  late  in  the  evening;  or  see  him  standing 
on  top  of  a  log  resting  upon  a  high  support,  or  beneath 
it,  and  pulling  laboriously  at  a  saw,  up  and  down, 
with  gusts  of  saw-dust  flying  into  his  beard,  eyes, 
nose,  mouth,  and  hair.  Consider  also  that  in  nearly 
all  of  his  tasks  he  uses  implements,  which  an  Ameri- 
can farmer  would  gather  into  a  pile  and  set  afire, 
before  he  would  ever  bother  working  with  them,  and 
you  cannot  help  wondering  at  the  industriousness  of 
the  mouzhik  and  his  milimited  patience  and  perse- 
verance. The  tragedy  of  the  peasant  was  not  that  he 
was  lazy — he  would  have  perished  had  he  allowed 


144    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

himself  to  be — but  that  he  did  not  have  enough  work, 
because  of  conditions  over  which  he  had  no  control, 
and  what  work  he  had,  did  not  yield  enough  income 
to  supply  him  with  the  necessaries  of  life. 

These  are  the  facts  of  the  everyday  life  of  the 
peasant,  before  the  coming  of  the  Revolution.  A 
clear  and  complete  understandmg  of  them  and  of  the 
forces  that  shaped  the  peasant's  existence,  is  surely 
indispensable  to  a  correct  estimate  of  the  nature  of 
the  Russian  Revolution,  for  it  is  from  them  that  the 
Revolution  has  sprung,  and  it  is  on  them  that  it 
feeds.  It  is  this  economic  and  social  environment 
that  has  molded  the  peasant's  basic  conceptions  of 
hfe,  those  desires  and  aspirations  which  form  the 
propelling  force  of  the  Revolution. 

What  are  these  conceptions?  What  does  life  mean 
to  the  peasant?  What  are  his  ideas  of  government? 
of  society?  of  justice?  What  does  he  want,  and  what 
is  he  struggling  for? 

For  one  thing,  the  peasant's  conception  of  the  state 
is  exceedingly  vague.  Under  the  old  regime  he  knew 
there  was  a  Czar,  he  knew  he  had  to  go  to  the  army 
and  perfoim  a  host  of  other  disagreeable  and  dan- 
gerous duties.  But  he  did  not  understand  the  func- 
tion and  purpose  of  the  state,  for  the  state  in  which 
he  lived  was  not  an  outgrowth  of  his  needs,  and 
could  never,  therefore,  become  part  of  his  hfe. 

Not  that  his  attitude  toward  the  Russian  state  was 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  145 

critical.  It  was  practically  a  foreign  element  in  his 
consciousness.  He  was  kept  in  ignorance.  If  he  was 
fortunate  to  be  admitted  to  a  school,  instead  of 
studying  history,  civics,  he  crammed  his  mind  full  of 
dates,  names  of  emperors,  their  relatives,  near  and 
distant,  fables,  formulas,  hymns.  He  scarcely  ever 
read  newspapers,  or  periodicals,  or  books.  He 
traveled  little,  and  when  he  did,  as  when  he  went  to 
the  army  or  took  a  trip  to  the  city  in  search  of  work, 
he,  of  course,  saw  something  of  the  big  world,  and 
new  concepts  were  formed  in  his  mind,  but  not 
extensively  enough  to  enable  him  to  view  himself 
in  perspective,  as  part  of  a  big  powerful  organism 
called  the  state,  the  purpose  and  intricate  workings  of 
which  he  could  comprehend  and  evaluate.  He  hved 
in  the  village  among  people  as  ignorant  as  himself, 
and  if  better  educated,  forbidden  to  communicate  to 
him  their  knowledge,  especially  on  poHtical  subjects. 
He  was  surrounded  by  woods,  prairies,  marshes,  far 
from  the  roar  and  din  of  civihzation,  with  scarcely  a 
breath  of  the  outside  world  ever  disturbing  the  heavy 
monotony  that  hung  over  his  life,  performing  his 
tasks  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  in  the  same 
crude,  inefficient,  slow  manner,  eating  the  same 
foods,  wearing  very  largely  the  same  clothes,  living 
in  the  same  hovel,  going  to  the  same  church,  listening 
to  the  same  droll  chants  and  unenhghtening  exhor- 
tations and  with  no  big  outlook  on  life.    It  is  true. 


146    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

that  since  the  Revolution  of  1905  events  have  oc- 
curred, hke  the  elections  to  the  fateful  Dumas,  and 
the  general  uproar  which  preceded  and  followed 
these  elections,  which  have  jarred  the  peasant  into 
some  comprehension  of  the  meaning  of  pohtical 
institutions,  their  functions,  powers  and  aims,  but 
even  with  these  added  experiences,  and  essentially 
because  of  the  painful  disillusionment  that  came  of 
them,  his  pohtical  consciousness  has  expanded  but 
Httle,  so  httle  that  he  has  not  been  thinking  much  in 
pohtical  terms  and  has  not  been  strugghng  for 
political  ends. 

A  related  matter  in  the  peasant's  conception  of  the 
state  is  the  peasant's  conception  of  ''zakon,"  law. 
He  had  no  part  in  making  the  laws  that  governed 
him.  He  never  was  even  consulted  as  to  what  laws 
he  deemed  necessary  for  the  protection  and  promo- 
tion of  his  welfare.  He  knew  only  that  they  were 
things  to  be  obeyed.  He  seldom  knew  when  laws 
were  made,  until  he  was  told  of  them  by  officials,  or 
until  he  violated  them  and  was  punished  for  the  vio- 
lation. Besides  different  officials  interpreted  laws  in 
different  ways  to  suit  the  inmiediate  occasion  and 
their  self-interest.  These  laws  were  not  expressive 
of  his  conceptions  of  justice  and  did  not  minister  to 
his  welfare.  On  the  contrary,  as  pointed  out  in  the 
discussion  of  the  legal  and  social  position  of  the  peas- 
ant, they  constantly  curbed  and  repressed  his  oppor- 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  147 

tunities  and  desires  for  advancement.  Says  A. 
Nastyrev  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  the  peas- 
ant's attitude  toward  law:  ''Law  in  the  eyes  of  the 
mouzhik  is  something  terrible,  mysterious,  incom- 
prehensible, that  in  the  name  of  which  the  govern- 
ment terrorizes,  abuses,  mutilates,  whips  out  arrears 
in  taxes,  exiles  to  Siberia,  disembowels  corpses,  pulls 
down  houses,  kills  stock,  drafts  into  the  army,  drives 
children  to  school,  compels  vaccination,  etc.,  ad  in- 
finitmn."  And  Kocharrovsky,  another  leading  au- 
thority on  peasant  Ufe,  says,  ''The  role  of  law  in  the 
hfe  of  the  peasant  is  something  similar  to  a  dreadful 
natural  phenomenon,  the  purpose  of  it  is  not  imder- 
stood,  but  its  power  is  felt  to  be  irresistible." 

The  remarkable  thing  about  this  attitude  toward 
state  law  is  the  fact  that  even  after  the  Czar  was  over- 
thrown and  revolutionary  governments  came  into 
power,  the  peasant  continued  as  formerly  to  be  sus- 
picious and  hostile  to  ruHngs  from  "above."  Said 
Peshekhonov,  Minister  of  Supphes  in  the  second 
Provisional  Government:  "The  old  power  is  gone; 
a  new  power  has  come  into  being,  but  the  masses 
have  no  confidence  in  it."  Kerensky  in  nearly  all  of 
his  addresses,  but  especially  in  the  one  he  dehvered 
at  the  Moscow  Conference,  lamented  the  fact  that  the 
distrust  and  contempt  the  masses  had  entertained 
toward  the  old  regime,  they  transferred  toward  the 
new  order.    And  Lenine  in  a  speech  on  January  17th, 


148    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

1919,  after  fifteen  months  of  Bolshevist  rule  in 
Russia,  deplored  the  fact  that  '^  millions  of  inhabi- 
tants grew  accustomed  to  regard  the  Central  Power 
of  the  nation  as  an  organization  of  landlords,  ex- 
ploiters and  murderers."  Indeed,  it  will  take  not  a 
little  time  and  not  a  little  direct  personal  participa- 
tion in  law-making,  before  the  peasant  will  lose  his 
distrust  of  rulings  from  "above." 

There  are  a  number  of  wTiters,  and  Mr.  E.J.  Dillon 
is  one  of  them,  who  seem  to  be  under  the  impression 
that  the  Russian  is  a  sort  of  born  anarchist,  instinc- 
tively rebellious  against  all  forms  of  outward  restraint. 
Is  he  more  so  than  is  the  ^\merican.  Frenchman,  or 
Englislmian?  If  they  had  had  his  experiences  with 
state  law,  they  too  would  have  grown  impatient  and 
rebellious  against  it,  only  because  of  a  higher  develop- 
ment of  individuahty,  they  would  have  manifested 
their  opposition  in  a  much  more  effectual  manner. 
King  George  the  third  must  have  regarded  the 
American  colonists  as  anarchists;  so  must  have 
Charles  the  first  adjudged  his  countrymen;  so  must 
have  Louis  the  sixteenth  viewed  liis  subjects;  so  must 
have  every  autocrat  since  the  earUest  days  of  history 
looked  upon  those  of  his  subjects  who  exhibited  de- 
fiance of  existing  laws.  The  fact  is,  that  as  far  as  the 
peasant  is  concerned  he  gladly  submits  to  laws,  the 
purpose  and  working  of  which  he  understands  and 
approves.    He  conscientiously  upholds  and  obeys  the 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  149 

various  regulations  which  the  village  "skhod^'  adopts 
from  time  to  time  in  the  administration  of  its  local 
affairs.  Furthermore  the  very  existence  of  thousands 
of  cooperative  societies  in  the  Russian  villages  is 
proof  positive  of  the  capacity  of  the  mouzhik  to  ad- 
here to  discipline  and  to  submit  to  the  regulations  of 
a  collective  body,  which  constitutes  a  fundamental 
attribute  of  a  law-abiding  citizen  in  a  free  state. 

Nor  is  the  Russian  peasant  a  patriot.  We  can 
hardly  expect  him  to  be.  A  man  is  a  patriot  and 
"zealously  supports  its  (his  country's)  authority  and 
interests,"  as  Webster  defines  the  word,  when  he 
knows  his  country,  and  is  convinced  rightly  or 
wrongly  that  it  is  part  of  him,  and  that  he  is  part  of  it. 
He  may  have  only  a  very  limited  voice  in  the  direction 
of  its  affairs,  as  did  the  Germans  under  the  Kaiser,  but 
he  seems  to  feel  that  those  who  do  rule  over  it,  rule 
for  him,  make  him  the  beneficiary  of  its  blessings,  and 
that  any  calamity  which  befalls  his  country  is  a  ca- 
lamity which  befalls  him  personally. 

But  under  the  old  regime  what  did  the  Russian 
peasant  know  of  his  country?  What  had  it  done  for 
him?  Patriotism  was  constantly  preached  to  the  peas- 
ant in  the  army,  in  church,  at  various  public  gather- 
ings, but  it  meant  nothing  to  him,  and  never  struck 
root  in  his  consciousness.  As  long  as  the  legend  of  the 
goodness  of  the  Czar  clung  to  his  mind,  he  was  ready 
to  offer  himself  not  for  his  country,  but  for  his  Czar. 


150    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

But  when  the  reaHties  of  life  blasted  that  legend  from 
his  mind,  there  remained  nothing,  not  even  the  least 
shadow  of  a  symbol  to  rouse  his  devotion  to  the  na- 
tion of  which  he  was  a  part.  All  the  great  things  that 
Russia  has  produced  for  the  world,  hterature,  art, 
music,  in  short  what  one  would  call  cultiu*e,  which 
might  inculcate  a  sense  of  national  pride  in  the  in- 
tellectual, are  as  foreign  to  him  as  the  fourth  di- 
mension. As  long  as  he  cannot  be  made  to  feel  that 
Russia  is  his  country,  his  motherland,  that  it  exists 
for  him,  not  he  for  it,  he  will  remain  ban-en  of  the 
sentiment  of  patriotism  and  national  spirit,  no  matter 
how  profuse  and  eloquent  the  exhortations  which  are 
^  addressed  to  him.  At  present  he  thinks  only  of  him- 
self, his  own  needs,  his  own  woes.  The  rest  of  Russia 
does  not  concern  liim — it  is  so  big,  so  remote.  He 
will  deal  with  it  only  in  so  far  as  it  will  deal  with  him. 
He  will  fight  only  when  his  personal  welfare  is  at 
stake,  for  he  really  has  nothing  else  to  fight  for.  He 
knows  of  nothing  else.  That  was  why  when  the  Czar 
was  overtlu-own,  he  very  largely  stopped  paying 
taxes.  Why  should  he  go  on  paying  big  sums  of 
money  to  the  people  ''above"?  he  questioned.  And 
when  he  failed  to  obtain  from  the  city  the  suppUes  he 
needed — calico,  leather,  iron,  implements, — he  as 
readily  stopped  sending  grain  to  the  city  when  Shin- 
garev,  the  Constitutional  Democrat,  was  Minister  of 
Agriculture,  or  when  Cliemov,  Social-Revolutionary, 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  151 

had  succeeded  Shingarev,  as  he  had  when  Rittich 
was  occupying  that  oflfice  under  the  Czar.  Hungry 
men,  women  and  children  in  the  city,  a  starving 
army,  famishing  men  of  his  own  class,  of  his  own 
village,  perhaps,  in  the  army,  did  not  stir  him  into 
hurrying  his  rye  to  the  freight  trains,  when  in  return 
for  it  he  could  not  obtain  the  goods  he  needed.  Fiery 
exhortations  were  of  no  avail.  He  was  not  a  citizen 
of  a  country.  He  was  a  resident.  No  wonder  that 
the  Russian  army,  made  up  mostly  of  peasants, 
collapsed  so  utterly  and  so  tragically  after  the  Czar 
was  overthrown. 

I  This  in  brief  is  the  political  ideology  of  the  peasant. 
His  vague  conception  of  pohtical  institutions,  his 
lack  of  active  patriotism,  his  distrust  of  law  and 
authority  from  above,  indicate  how  immature  and 
raw  is  his  pohtical  consciousness.  He  thinks  not  in 
positive  but  in  negative  political  concepts,  not  of 
what  he  beheves  to  be  politically  right  and  proper, 
but  of  what  he  know^s  to  be  wicked  and  vicious.  He 
has  never  formulated  a  constructive  political  pro- 
gram, had  never  thought  one  necessary,  and  has 
paid  little  heed  to  those  who  have  endeavored  to 
m"ge  one  upon  him.  In  the  course  of  the  first  con- 
gress of  the  Peasant  Union  in  1905  a  social-demo- 
cratic representative  proposed  a  resolution  recom- 
mending to  the  peasants  that  they  instruct  their 
delegates  to  the  much-hoped-for  Constituent  Con- 


152    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

vention  to  urge  the  formation  of  a  democratic  repub- 
lic. The  resolution  was  voted  down  by  a  vast 
majority  on  the  ground  that  its  adoption  would 
frighten  the  peasant  masses  away  from  the  Union! 
The  opposition  was  right.  The  peasant's  mind 
was  almost  barren  of  positive  political  concepts. 
Parhament,  constitution,  president,  legislature,  ini- 
tiative and  referendum,  proportionate  representa- 
tion, these  words  are  quite  obscure  to  him.  Only  now 
under  the  pressure  of  epochal  events  is  he  slowly  ac- 
quiring a  political  consciousness  and  positive  politi- 
cal concepts.  It  will  take,  however,  not  a  httle  time 
before  these  will  crystallize  into  a  definite  effectual 
poUtical  program.  But  at  present  the  mouzhik  is 
interested  chiefly  in  a  thorough  change  of  his  eco- 
nomic and  social  condition  by  whatever  methods 
possible. 

In  the  absence  of  a  political  education  and  pohtical 
experience,  in  the  absence  of  a  vital  interest  in  mere 
pohtical  reform  and  under  the  pressure  of  intolerable 
poverty,  the  peasant  has  come  to  think  of  hfe  almost 
exclusively  in  terms  of  social  and  economic  changes, 
and  whenever  political  methods  have  been  suggested 
to  him,  he  has  valued  them  only  in  so  far  as  they  held 
forth  promise  of  realizing  his  social  and  economic 
goal  quickly  and  effectively. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  (Continued) 

2.  Social 

In  passing  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  peasant's 
social  ideology  it  is  first  necessary  to  take  cogni- 
zance of  his  rather  pecuhar  attitude  toward  private 
property. 

Both  reactionary  Slavophils  and  SociaUsts  of  the 
'' Populist,"  so-called  brand,  regarded  the  peasant  as 
a  born  communist,  uncontaminated  by  the  spirit  of 
individualism  of  the  capitalistic  West,  and,  therefore, 
free  from  the  vices  of  this  individualism,  such  as 
greed  for  personal  gain  and  ambition  to  attain  riches 
at  whatever  cost  to  character  and  to  the  welfare  of 
one's  neighbor.  The  peasant  commune,  they  de- 
clared, prevented  the  concentration  of  property  and 
power  in  few  hands  and  the  consequent  formation  of 
conflicting  social  classes.  This  commune  was  to  them 
a  holy  institution,  by  means  of  which  the  peasant 
could  make  a  short  cut  to  a  higher  social  order,  es- 
caping the  travail  and  agony  of  capitaUstic  develop- 
ment, and  destined,  therefore,  to  lead  peacefully  all 
mankind  to  a  superior  stage  of  social  evolution. 


154    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  peasant,  according  to  these  theorists,  did  not 
even  possess  a  sense  of  private  property,  a  behef  that 
is  still  professed  by  some  orthodox  PopuHsts.  Sober 
science  and  the  trend  of  events,  however,  have 
exploded  these  romantic  theories  of  the  Slavophils 
and  Populists.  It  has  been  definitely  ascertained 
that  the  commune  is  by  no  means  a  distinctive  Rus- 
sian institution,  that  it  existed  in  western  Europe  in 
one  form  or  another,  when  the  communal  form  of 
landed  ownership  corresponded  with  the  then  ex- 
isting stage  of  economic  development.  The  commune 
which  prevailed  in  Germany  in  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  was  in  its  constituency,  func- 
tions and  methods  of  procedure  almost  an  exact 
counterpart  of  the  Russian  mir.  Later  when  the 
commune  was  dissolved  in  Germany,  and  many  Ger- 
man peasants  migrated  to  Russia  to  the  government 
of  Saratov,  they  continued  to  live  in  a  communal 
manner,  and  subsequently  when  many  of  them  left 
Russiay  and  migrated  to  the  prairies  of  Nebraska, 
Kansas  and  the  Dakotas,  they  imported  their  com- 
munism with  them.  In  point  of  sheer  perfection 
these  German  communes  as  they  now  exist  in  Amer- 
ica, are  far  in  advance  of  the  Russian  mir,  for  in  them 
absolute  cooperation  prevails — all  members  not  only 
owning  the  land  in  common  but  working  it  jointly, 
and  all  sharing  alike  in  the  fruits  of  their  collective 
labor,  whereas  in  the  mir,  each  member  works  his  own 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  155 

assigned  plot,  and  whatever  crops  he  gathers  are  his 
personal  possession.  It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that 
there  is  nothing  distinctively  Russian  in  the  peasants 
commune,  and  that  its  existence  in  the  form  of  the 
mir,  is  not  at  all  expressive  of  a  certain  particularly 
noble,  inherently  Russian  form  of  ideahsm,  but  is 
rather  a  symptom  of  a  backward  economic  develop- 
ment. 

Economic  pressure  from  above  and  below  have 
preserved  the  mir  in  Russian  life.  On  the  one  hand 
the  government  in  its  effort  to  perpetuate  the  social 
system  that  prevailed  under  serfdom  and  to  create  an 
effective  tax-collecting  instrument,  so  bound  the 
peasants  together  in  the  mir,  that  they  could  not 
separate  from  it  or  only  with  difficulty,  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  peasant  himself  struggled  desperately 
to  earn  his  bread,  with  httle  land  at  his  disposal,  so 
little  that  if  he  had  cut  it  up  into  individual  parcels, 
he  would  scarcely  have  had  any  pasture  and  wood- 
land, and  could  hardly  have  kept  any  stock  or  had 
any  fuel  and  lumber;  and  in  time  of  economic  de- 
pression he  would  have  been  obHged  to  sell  it  and 
join  the  army  of  proletarians,  for  whom  there  was 
not  enough  work  in  the  country.  That  perhaps 
would  have  proved  in  the  long  run  no  more  or  even 
less  of  a  calamity  than  remaining  attached  to  a  de- 
vitaHzed  strip  of  land.  Yet  the  mere  occupation  of 
such  a  strip  of  land  in  the  absence  of  other  profitable 


156    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

and  steady  work,  was  a  sort  of  insurance  against 
complete  destitution.  That  was  why  the  peasant  on 
his  part  strove  to  uphold  the  commune.  Still  it  must 
be  emphasized  that  despite  these  constraining  forces, 
the  aims  of  the  government  and  the  indigence  of  the 
peasant,  the  commune  was  actually  deteriorating 
^  socially;  distinct  classes  of  kulacks  and  poor  peasants 
were  coming  into  existence;  power  and  property  were 
concentrating;  the  poor  peasant,  being  forbidden  to 
sell  his  land,  was  renting  it  away  for  a  long  period  and 
thus  practically  sundering  his  connection  with  it. 
The  capitalistic  differentiation  which  the  Slavophils 
and  PopuHsts  had  deprecated,  was  actually  fast  in- 
vading the  mir  and  disrupting  the  economic  and 
social  equality  that  was  supposed  to  have  reigned 
there  undisturbed. 

t/  Thus  there  is  as  much  justification  in  ascribing  to 
the  peasant  an  innate  devotion  to  the  principle  of 
communism,  as  there  is  to  credit  him  with  an  innate 
preference  for  keeping  his  pigs  in  the  house  during 
the  cold  months.     Both  were  matters  of  necessity, 

ly'not  choice.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  mouzhik  has 
acquired  a  deep  and  keen  sense  of  private  property. 
His  house,  stock,  implements,  crops,  are  his  personal 
possession,  and  it  has  never  been  avenged  by  the 
staunchest  Popuhst  that  the  peasant  does  not  be- 
lieve in  having  and  holding  as  much  of  these  as  he 
can  secure,  or  that  he  favors  their  periodic  redistri- 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  157 

bution  so  as  to  equalize  their  shares  among  all  mem- 
bers of  the  village.  Nor  is  it  correct  to  assert  that 
only  as  far  as  land  is  concerned  does  the  peasant 
manifest  no  sense  of  private  property.  After  all  his 
conceptions  are  not  so  finely  spmi  as  to  lead  him  to 
regard  a  horse  or  hog  or  a  pair  of  boots  as  objects  of 
private  property,  and  a  meadow  or  a  stretch  of  forest 
as  something  beyond  the  possibility  of  becoming 
his  individual  possession.  In  reality  whenever  and 
wherever  an  opportunity  has  presented  itself,  the 
peasant  has  gladly  acquired  property  in  land,  all 
that  he  could  afford  and  sometimes  more,  too,  as  the 
arrears  to  the  land-bank  so  eloquently  testify;  and 
no  one  will  dispute  the  fact,  that  there  is  not  a  peas- 
ant Uving  who  is  in  the  least  averse  to  coming  into 
proprietorship  of  a  farm.  Says  Tugan-Baranovsky 
one  of  Russia's  leading  economists:  ''Our  peasant  is 
by  no  means  a  proletarian;  he  has  his  own  house- 
hold, which  he  loves  passionately,  and  with  which 
he  will  part  only  under  the  pressure  of  extreme 
necessity. .  The  dream  of  our  peasant  is  the  pos- 
session of  a  profitable  farm  of  his  own." 

Yet,  though  possessing  a  distinct  sense  of  private 
property  in  land,  the  attitude  of  the  Russian  peasant 
toward  such  property  is  rather  different  from  that  of 
the  western  or  American  farmers.  The  latter  because 
of  their  sojourn  in  an  environment  of  individualism, 
deeply  intensified  by  the  rapid  gi-owth  of  industrial- 


p/ 


158    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ism,  having  been  accustomed  to  independent  owner- 
ship of  land,  and  having  enjoyed  a  comparative  de- 
gree of  economic  prosperity,  have  come  to  regard 
private  property  in  land  as  much  and  as  sacred  a  right 
as  that  of  going  to  school  or  getting  married.  Our 
New  Hampshire  dairyman,  as  well  as  our  Kansas 
wheat-grower  and  Colorado  cattle-rancher  and  Cal- 
ifornia fruit-farmer  firmly  beheve  in  the  right  of  any 
individual  to  have  and  to  hold  all  the  land  that  is 
deeded  to  him,  and  to  do  with  it  whatever  he  pleases, 
to  rent,  sell  or  exchange  it  for  a  home,  a  shop,  an 
automobile.  He  looks  upon  private  property  in  land 
as  the  most  fimdamental  inviolate  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual. But  the  conditions  in  the  hfe  of  the  Russian 
peasant  have  not  bred  in  him  the  same  devotion  to 
the  institution  of  private  property  in  land.  In  the 
first  place  the  peasant  is  not  given  to  trading  in  land. 
Even  the  richer  peasant,  when  he  purchases  an  addi- 
tional holding,  does  so  usually,  not  for  the  pmpose  of 
selling  but  of  working  or  renting,  if  he  cannot  work  it 
himself.  One  is  safe  in  saying  that  perhaps  in  no 
other  country  in  the  world  has  the  farmer  been  so 
little  given  to  deahng  in  land  as  a  commodity  of  ex- 
change as  in  Russia.  One  does  not  meet  in  Russian 
agricultural  or  agrarian  Uterature  the  phrase  "peas- 
ant land-speculator"  for  there  are  scarcely  any  such 
speculators.  Of  course  the  communal  form  of  owner- 
ship prevented  the  selling  of  land.     But  even  in 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  159 

places  where  the  commune  does  not  prevail,  or  where 
lands  have  been  pm-chased  on  an  extensive  scale, 
speculative  exchange  in  land  on  the  part  of  peasants, 
is  conspicuously  absent.  The  peasant's  experience  />^ 
with  land  is  limited  only  to  that  of  a  tiller,  a  laborer. 
He  associates,  therefore,  the  ownership  of  the  land 
with  the  working  of  it.  He  beUeves  that  the  land  in 
its  natural  state  is  nobody's,  the  creation  of  God^  and 
that  none  others  but  those  who  work  it  with  their 
own  hands,  shall  have  the  right  to  possess  them- 
selves of  it.  The  streams  and  fields,  and  forests,  he 
is  convinced,  were  created  only  for  those  who  want 
to  apply  their  own  labor  to  them.  All  Russian 
authorities,  conservative  and  liberal,  are  agreed  as  to 
this  fundamental  notion  of  the  peasant,  a  notion 
which  is  by  no  means  distinctively  Russian,  but 
which,  as  Maslov  points  out,  prevailed  in  the  six- 
teenth century  in  western  Em-ope,  and  which  is 
common  to  all  peoples  at  the  beginning  of  capitaUs- 
tic  development,  but  which  disappears  in  the  course 
of  industrial  growth,  because  of  the  social  and  eco- 
nomic differentiations  that  such  growth  creates. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  in  this  connection  that 
in  southern  Russia  where  sectarianism  has  met  with 
much  favor,  and  where  the  peasant  reads  the  Bible 
a  good  deal  and  interprets  it  in  the  light  of  his  own 
experiences,  the  beUef  is  common  that  according  to 
the  written  word  of  God,  as  recorded  in  the  Bible,  it 


160    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

is  wrong  to  sell  or  gamble  in  land,  or  do  anything  else 
but  work  it  with  one's  own  hands.  The  sectarian 
peasant  contends,  that  even  the  Czar  is  forbidden 
by  God  to  take  land  from  the  people  who  work  it, 
and  he  quotes  passage  after  passage  from  the  Bible 
in  corroboration  of  his  contention.  The  following 
are  some  of  the  scriptural  passages  he  most  frequently 
cites  in  defense  of  his  beliefs : 

"So  shall  ye  divide  this  land  unto  you  according  to 
the  tribes  of  Israel. 

''And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  ye  shall  divide  it  by 
lot  for  an  inheritance  unto  you,  and  to  the  strangers 
that  sojourn  among  you,  which  shall  beget  children 
among  you;  and  they  shall  be  unto  you  as  bom  in 
the  country  among  the  children  of  Israel;  they 
shall  have  inheritance  with  you  among  the  tribes  of 
Israel. 

"And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  in  what  tribe  the 
stranger  sojourneth,  there  shall  ye  give  him  his 
inheritance,  saith  the  Lord  God."  (Ezekiel,  ch,  47, 
verses  21-23.) 

"Moreover  the  prince  shall  not  take  of  the  people's 
inheritance  by  oppression,  to  thrust  them  out  of 
their  possession ;  but  he  shall  give  his  sons  inheritance 
out  of  his  own  possession,  that  my  people  be  not 
scattered  every  man  from  his  possession."  (Ezekiel, 
ch.  46,  verse  18.) 

"The  land  shall  not  be  sold  forever:  for  the  land 


'HE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  161 

is  mine,  for  ye  are  strangers  and  sojourners  with  me." 
(Leviticus,  ch.  25,  verse  23.) 

^'For  I  mean  not  that  other  men  be  eased  and  ye 
burdened.  But  by  an  equahty,  that  now  at  this  time 
your  abundance  may  be  a  supply  for  your  want; 
that  there  may  be  equahty."  (2  Corinthians,  ch.  8, 
verse  13.) 

''Woe  unto  them  that  join  house  to  house,  that  lay 
field  to  field  till  there  be  no  place,  that  they  may  be 
placed  in  the  midst  of  the  earth."  (Isaiah,  ch.  5, 
verse  8.) 

The  Stundists,  or  the  Russian  Baptists  as  they  are 
sometimes  called,  have  been  particularly  zealous  in 
citing  the  above  and  other  biblical  quotations  as 
proofs  of  the  inviolate  claim  of  the  working  peasant 
to  the  land  of  Hussia. 

Another  condition  which  sustains  the  aforemen- 
tioned belief  in  the  peasant,  is  his  landlessness  or 
land  poverty.  Here  again  we  notice  a  marked  con- 
trast in  the  position  of  the  American  farmer  or  the 
French,  Dutch,  Belgian  peasant  and  that  of  the 
Russian  mouzhik.  The  American  farmer  has  an 
abundance  of  territory  for  pasture  as  well  as  for 
tillage,  and  he  has  enjoyed  on  the  whole  quite  a  sub- 
stantial amount  of  prosperity.  The  French,  Belgian, 
Dutch,  German  homesteader,  though  possessing  a 
small  acreage,  in  some  instances  actually  much 
smaller  on  the  average  than  that  of  the  mouzhik, 


162    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

has  because  of  the  practice  of  intensive  methods  of 
cultivation,  the  presence  of  nearby,  well-paying 
markets  and  amply  developed  transportation  facih- 
ties  been  able  to  reap  more  or  less  satisfactory  finan- 
cial rewards.  In  the  case  of  the  mouzhik,  as  we  have 
already  learned  in  a  previous  chapter,  fifteen  per 
cent  of  the  householders  engaged  in  farm-work  in 
1905  possessed  not  a  span  of  land  of  their  own,  and 
seventy  per  cent  of  those  tilling  their  own  allotments 
possessed  an  area  anywhere  between  one  and  ten 
dessyatins,  at  best  less  than  was  actually  required 
to  maintain  the  low  standard  of  hving  to  which  the 
Russian  peasant  is  accustomed.  Add  to  this  the 
other  disagreeable  features  in  the  agricultural  life 
of  the  mouzhik,  the  sovereignty  of  the  mir,  and  its 
stultifying  effect  upon  personal  initiative,  the  high 
rent,  the  low  wages  of  labor,  the  utter  impossibihty 
for  any  but  the  very  fortunate  few  to  come  into 
possession  of  additional  holdings,  and  it  is  easy  to 
conceive  why  the  primitive  notion  of  the  land 
being  the  creation  of  God,  therefore  the  possession 
of  those  who  work  it,  has  remained  so  firmly  rooted 
in  the  mind  of  the  Russian  peasant  even  in  those 
places,  as  in  Ulo-aine,  where  individual  ownership 
in  land  has  always  prevailed,  and  this  despite  the 
pressure  of  social  differentiation,  which  the  growth 
of  capitalism  was  introducing. 
A  third  factor  in  molding  the  peasant's  attitude 


THE  roEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  163 

toward  private  property  in  land  is  his  belief  that 
labor  is  entitled  to  all  that  it  produces — a  notion 
that  is  likewise  an  inevitable  outcome  of  his  past 
experience.  In  the  first  place  he  has  always  sustained 
himself  by  his  labor.  It  has  been  his  sole  weapon  in 
the  struggle  for  existence — all  that  he  has  ever  at- 
tained and  enjoyed  has  come  to  him  essentially  by 
means  of  his  labor.  Secondly,  in  his  environment 
he  sees  labor  producing  everything — clearing  forests, 
raising  crops,  erecting  buildings.  In  the  absence  of 
a  complex  industrial  mechanism,  with  the  simple 
semi-primitive  forms  that  prevail  in  Russian  village 
hfe,  all  the  processes  of  production  are  minutely 
known  to  the  peasant  and  practiced  solely  by  him. 
Under  these  circumstances  it  is  rather  natural  that 
he  though  unversed  in  the  science  of  economics, 
ignorant  even  of  the  existence  of  such  a  science, 
should  come  to  ascribe  to  labor  a  preeminent  role  in 
the  creation  of  wealth — the  wealth  of  course  known 
to  him — and,  therefore,  entitled  to  the  full  enjoy- 
ment of  such  wealth. 

In  explaining  this  ideological  phenomenon,  which 
does  not  prevail  in  western  countries,  A.  Yefimenko 
says:  ''In  western  countries  the  pressure  of  the  upper 
layer  of  society  upon  the  lower  was  so  great,  that  it 
successfully  crushed  out  of  the  latter  those  juridical 
conceptions,  which  were  originally  common  to  them 
as   workers.      The   development   of   the   economic 


164    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

order,  which  tore  the  peasant  from  his  land,  the 
laborer  from  the  product  of  his  labor,  which  made 
labor  the  indirect  and  not  the  direct  means  of  satis- 
fying the  wants  of  the  laborer,  further  helped  to 
destroy  these  conceptions.  Such  was  the  case  in  the 
west.  But  in  Russia  the  situation  is  to  a  very  large 
degree  different.  Our  peasant  having  remamed  on 
his  land  has  preserved  in  a  much  larger  measure  the 
immediate  connection  between  the  laborer  and  the 
product  of  his  toil,  and  has,  therefore,  retained  the 
juridical  ideas  of  this  particular  type  of  labor." 

This  conception  of  labor  has  found  abundant  ex- 
pression in  the  social  relations  of  the  peasants  toward 
each  other.  ''The  right  of  invested  labor,"  says 
Kocharovsky,  whom  the  reserved  Tugan-Baranovsky 
calls  the  leading  authority  on  peasant  life,  "as  a 
basis  for  all  forms  of  property  rights,  exists  decidedly 
in  all  the  manifestations  of  popular  customary  law. 
That  is  why  the  sphere  of  distribution  of  the  rights  of 
labor  coincides  with  the  province  of  customary  law 
in  general."  In  the  peasant  courts,  for  example, 
which  date  back  to  olden  times,  and  in  which  justice 
is  administered  on  the  basis  of  customary  law  and 
tradition,  labor  has  always  been  recognized  as  having 
rights  prior  and  superior  to  property  and  even 
kinship.  Stepniack  gives  the  following  summary 
of  the  verdicts  of  these  tribunals  which  were  col- 
lected  by  a   government    commission,    and    which 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OP  THE  PEASANT  165 

clearly  define  the  peasant's  attitude  toward  labor 
and  property: 

''Kinship  has  no  influence  whatever  in  the  dis- 
tribution and  proportioning  of  shares  at  any  division 
of  property.  It  is  determined  by  the  quantity  of 
work  each  has  given  to  the  family.  The  brother  who 
has  hved  and  worked  with  the  family  for  the  longer 
time,  will  receive  most,  no  matter  whether  he  be  the 
older  or  the  younger.  He  will  be  excluded  from  the 
inheritance  altogether,  if  he  has  been  living  some- 
where else,  and  has  not  contributed  in  some  way  to 
the  common  expenses.  The  same  principle  is  ob- 
served in  settling  the  differences  between  the  other 
gi'ades  of  kinsfolk.  The  cases  of  sons-in-law,  step- 
sons, and  adopted  children  are  very  characteris- 
tic. If  they  remained  a  sufficient  time — ten  years 
or  more — with  the  family,  they  receive,  though 
strangers,  all  the  rights  of  legitimate  children,  whilst 
the  legitimate  son  is  excluded  if  he  did  not  take  part 
in  the  common  work. 

"This  is  in  flagrant  contradiction  to  the  civil  code 
of  Russia,  as  well  as  of  other  European  countries. 
The  same  contradiction  is  observable  in  the  question 
of  women's  rights.  The  Russian  law  entitles  wo- 
men— legitimate  wives  and  daughters — to  one-four- 
teenth only  of  the  family  inheritance.  The  peasant's 
customary  law  requires  no  such  limitations.  The 
women  are  in  all  respects  dealt  with  on  an  equal 


166    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

footing  with  the  men.  They  share  in  the  property 
in  proportion  to  their  share  in  the  work.  Sisters  as  a 
rule,  do  not  inherit  from  brothers,  because  in  mairy- 
ing  they  go  to  another  family,  and  take  with  them 
as  dowry  the  reward  of  their  domestic  work.  But  a 
spinster  sister,  or  a  widow,  who  returns  to  hve  with 
her  brothers,  will  always  receive  or  obtain  from  the 
tribunal  her  share. 

"The  right  of  inheritance  being  founded  on  work 
alone,  no  distinction  is  made  by  the  peasant's  cus- 
tomary law  between  legitimate  wives  and  concu- 
bines. 

''It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  husband,  too, 
inherits  the  wife's  property,  if  she  has  brought  him 
any,  only  when  they  have  hved  together  sufficiently 
long — above  ten  years;  otherwise  the  deceased  wife's 
property  is  returned  to  her  parents. 

''The  principle  ruling  the  order  of  inheritance  is 
evidently  the  basis  of  the  verdicts  in  all  sorts  of 
htigation.  Labor  is  always  recognized  as  giving  an 
incontrovertible  right  to  property.  Accordmg  to 
common  jurisprudence,  if  one  man  has  sown  a  field 
belonging  to  another — especially  if  he  has  done  it 
knowingly — the  court  of  justice  will  unhesitatingly 
deny  the  offender  any  right  to  the  eventual  product. 
Our  peasants  are  as  strict  in  their  observance  of 
boundaries,  when  once  traced,  as  are  any  other  agri- 
cultural folk.    But  labor  has  its  imperishable  rights. 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  167 

The  customary  law  prescribes  a  remuneration  for 
the  work  executed  in  both  of  the  above-mentioned 
cases — in  the  case  of  unintentional  as  well  as  in  the 
case  of  premeditated  violation  of  property.  Only 
in  the  first  instance,  the  offender  who  retains  all  the 
product,  is  simply  compelled  to  pay  to  the  owner  the 
rent  of  the  piece  of  land  he  has  souti  according  to 
current  prices  with  some  trifling  additional  present; 
whilst  in  the  case  of  violation  knowingly  done,  the 
product  is  left  to  the  owner  of  the  land,  who  is  bound, 
nevertheless,  to  return  to  the  offender  the  seed,  and 
to  pay  him  a  laborer's  wage  for  the  work  he  has  done. 

''If  a  peasant  has  cut  wood  in  a  forest  belonging 
to  another  peasant  the  tribunal  settles  the  matter  in 
a  similar  way.  In  all  these  cases  the  common  law 
would  have  been  wholly  against  the  offender,  the 
abstract  right  of  property  reigning  supreme." 

Of  coiu-se  not  always  are  cases  decided  upon  the 
basis  of  the  above-mentioned  principles.  There 
are  numerous  and  frequent  exceptions,  due  to  the 
fact  that  powerful  influences  from  the  outside  such 
as  bribery,  intimidation  by  officials,  have  exerted  a 
\dtiating  effect  upon  the  peasant  courts,  and  have 
forced  them  to  issue  decrees  at  variance  with  the 
traditional  conceptions  of  justice.  It  would  also  be 
incorrect  to  assert  that  all  peasants  approve  of  the 
customary  principles  bearing  on  the  relation  be- 
tween property  and  labor.    The  peasant  trader,  the 


168    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

kulack  and  all  those  who  have  accumulated  a  sub- 
stantial amount  of  property  in  land  and  other 
utilities,  decidedly  oppose  these  principles,  and 
for  the  same  reason,  for  which  the  other  peasants 
favor  them — both  are  primarily  concerned  in  the 
promotion  of  their  economic  interest.  But  the 
number  of  affluent  peasants  in  Russia  is  propor- 
tionately small,  and  I  am  not  concerned  with  them 
in  this  discussion  of  The  Russian  Revolution,  for 
they  are  not  part  of  the  Revolution  in  the  sense  in 
which  the  poor  peasants  are. 

The  vast  majority  of  the  peasants  adhere  to  and 
uphold  their  traditional  conceptions  of  the  rights  of 
labor  not  as  Kocharovsky  explains,  because  of  a 
high  cultural  development,  which  they  manifestly 
do  not  possess,  but  because  of  the  historical  condi- 
tions which  molded  their  ideas  of  right  and  wrong. 

These  conditions  and  conceptions,  to  wit,  the 
absence  of  trading  in  land,  landlessness  and  land 
poverty,  the  attitude  toward  property  in  land  and 
toward  the  rights  of  labor,  account  for  the  peasant's 
conviction  that  he  has  an  inalienable  right  to  the 
land.  Even  when  he  was  a  serf,  the  property  of  the 
master,  he  persistently  declared  that  the  land  was 
his,  as  is  lucidly  expressed  in  the  popular  saying: 
"My  washi,  a  zemlia  nasha" — "we  are  yours,  but 
the  land  is  ours."  He  looks  upon  the  landlords 
not  as  owners,  but  as  usurpers  of  the  land.     He 


THE  roEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  169 

cares  not  for  their  deeds,  titles,  and  other  legal 
safeguards.  They  mean  nothing  to  him.  *'In  the 
consciousness  of  the  people,"  said  a  representative 
from  Vladimir  at  the  Congress  of  the  Peasant  Union 
in  1905,  ''land  is  the  gift  of  God,  like  air  and  water. 
Only  he  who  wants  to  work  it  should  get  it,  each 
according  to  his  needs."  And  the  peasant  deputy 
Anikine  in  a  speech  in  the  Duma  said:  ''We  need  the 
land  not  for  sale  or  mortgage,  not  for  speculation, 
not  to  rent  it  and  get  rich,  but  to  work  it.  The  land 
interests  us  not  as  merchandise  or  commodity,  but 
as  a  means  to  raise  useful  products.  We  need  the 
land  only  to  plant."  All  the  utterances  of  peasants 
express  a  similar  spirit,  hence  the  slogan  of  the  Rus- 
sian agrarian  movement,  "Zemlia  narodu" — "the 
land  to  the  people,  the  working  people." 

Indeed  in  land,  and  in  land  alone,  does  the  mouzhik 
see  a  panacea  for  all  his  ills.  Land!  Land!  Land! 
From  one  end  of  Russia  to  the  other  this  word  has 
resounded  with  ever-increasing  loudness.  The  only 
hope  that  has  sustained  the  peasant  in  the  centuries 
of  bondage,  was  his  undying  behef  that  some  day 
something  would  happen,  which  would  make  him 
the  sole  possessor  of  the  land  in  Russia,  and  then  an 
end  would  come  to  his  privations.  Little  has  he 
realized,  that  the  expropriation  of  the  pomieshtchiks 
and  other  holders  of  big  estates  will  not  throw  open 
an  unhmited  land  fund  out  of  which  a  man  could 


170    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  .\ND  THE  REVOLUTION 

carve  a  strip  as  need  arose  and  join  it  to  his  allot- 
ment. In  all  not  more  than  sixty  million  dessyatins 
can  be  added  at  present  to  the  peasant  holdings — a 
vast  area,  indeed,  but  if  divided  among  about  sixteen 
million  householders,  it  would  add  only  enough  to 
the  allotment  of  each  substantially  to  ameliorate 
his  condition  for  a  short  time,  and  would  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years  leave  him  helpless  again,  unless 
the  transfer  of  this  land  were  accompanied  by  a 
general  improvement  in  the  industrial  condition  of 
the  country,  which  would  make  it  possible  for  a  por- 
tion of  the  rural  population  to  move  to  the  city  and 
settle  there,  and  more  important  by  far,  unless  new 
methods  of  tillage  were  introduced,  new  machinery 
brought  in,  new  railroads  built,  new  highways  laid, 
so  as  to  enable  the  peasant  to  raise  bigger  crops  and 
dispose  of  them  in  well-estabhshed  markets,  without 
much  ado  and  with  little  loss.  Only  now  under  the 
impact  of  the  brutal  reaUties  of  life,  which  the  Revo- 
lution has  lashed  to  the  surface,  is  the  mouzhik  be- 
ginning to  appreciate  more  fully  the  need  of  these 
improvements. 

And  yet  it  was  rather  natural  that  he  should  have, 
during  the  past  ages,  cherished  the  hope  and  the 
belief,  that  the  division  of  the  non-peasant  lands 
would  provide  him  with  the  means  of  an  ample  hveh- 
hood.  He  really  knows  of  nothing  else  that  would 
offer  relief.    Other  fields  of  activity  have  been  prac- 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  171 

tically  closed  to  him.  Commercial  life  has  scarcely 
had  any  opening  for  him — men  from  other  classes  of 
society  have  very  largely  monopoUzed  that  field  of 
endeavor.  In  the  city  there  has  been  no  work  for 
him,  and  in  the  village  not  enough,  and  to  search 
for  work  in  other  places  has  been  extremely  difficult, 
firstly,  because  there  have  been  very  few  such  places, 
and,  secondly,  because  of  legal  and  economic  diffi- 
culties to  reach  them,  as  has  already  been  described 
in  a  preceding  chapter.  Of  adopting  modem  meth- 
ods of  tillage  he  has  never  thought  much,  because 
with  the  exception  of  the  few  zemstvo  and  coopera- 
tive agencies  and  the  still  fewer  government  advis- 
ory committees,  no  one  in  Russia  has  ever  sought  to 
convey  the  necessary  information  to  him,  and  even 
were  he  possessed  of  this  information  he  could  nob 
apply  it  at  all  advantageously,  under  the  conditions 
which  prevailed  in  the  Russian  village.  Search  as 
hard  as  he  might,  aside  from  an  increase  in  his  land- 
holding  he  could  find  nothing  that  offered  hope  of 
rehef. 

Then,  too,  the  peasant  loves  the  land — its  freedom, 
spaciousness,  beauty,  of  which  he  is  very  sensitive, 
as  is  illustrated  in  his  songs  and  stories,  buoy  and 
exhilarate  him.  He  speaks  of  the  land  in  endearing 
terms — matushka-zemlia,  mother  earth,  poilitza, 
drink-giver,  and  kormilitza,  food-giver,  are  expres- 
sions that  have  become  part  of  his  everyday  speech. 


172    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

He  loves  the  work  in  fields,  as  he  loves  no  other  kind 
of  work.  Besides,  he  has  lived  on  land  since  days 
immemorial,  and  there  is  no  other  place  where  he 
feels  so  much  at  home  and  at  ease.  Moreover,  all 
around  him  he  sees  landlords  who  have  everything, 
enjoy  everything,  beautiful  homes,  elegant  clothes, 
abundance  of  food;  who  ride  in  stately  carriages, 
drawn  by  sprightly  horses;  whose  children  frolic  at 
balls  and  dances,  and  gallop  merrily  about  the  coun- 
try on  horseback.  The  landlord,  the  peasant  rea- 
soned had  everything,  because  he  had  much  land. 
Anyone  who  had  much  land  could  be  happy.  Hence 
he  was  sure  that  increase  in  his  holding  would  lift 
him  to  a  higher  level  of  Hving. 

But  does  the  peasant  have  any  definite  program  of 
realizing  his  aim  to  take  possession  of  the  land?  He 
has.  Practically  all  Russian  writers  are  agreed  that 
the  agrarian  movement  is  moving  in  the  direction  of 
nationalization  of  land.  This,  they  aver,  is  at  any 
rate  the  purport  of  peasant  utterances,  whether 
in  the  form  of  a  resolution  at  a  congress  or  a  speech 
in  some  representative  assembly.  The  resolu- 
tion adopted  by  the  congress  of  the  Peasant  Union, 
in  1905,  the  first  organization  of  its  kind  in  Russian 
history  having  national  significance,  states:  ''To  put 
an  end  to  the  sufferings  of  the  people  resulting  from 
a  shortage  of  land,  is  possible  only  by  means  of  trans- 
ferring all  land  to  the  possession  of  the  nation  for  the 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  173 

use  of  those  who  cultivate  land  with  the  labor  of 
their  own  families  or  in  a  cooperative  manner."  The 
second  congress  of  the  Union  passed  a  similar  reso- 
lution with  regard  to  the  disposition  of  land.  Of 
course  this  Union  in  its  constituency  represented 
only  the  petty  peasant  landholders  and  mainly  those 
of  Great  Russia,  where  the  communal  form  of 
ownership  is  universal,  and  not  those  of  Ukraine 
where  private  ownership  very  largely  prevails.  But 
the  spirit  of  the  resolutions  and  debates  of  the  Peas- 
ant Union  is  expressive  of  the  entire  Russian  peas- 
antry. "Zemlia  narodu" — ''the  land  to  the  people" 
is  a  universal  slogan  in  rural  Russia,  as  dear  to  the 
mouzhik  in  the  north  as  in  the  south.  The  Ukrainian 
Rada  in  the  "Universal"  (manifesto)  it  issued  on 
November  20,  1917,  expressed  itself  in  favor  of 
the  nationahzation  of  the  land.  And  the  Peasant 
Soviet  Congress,  though  made  up  largely  of  peas- 
ant intellectuals  and  members  of  the  educated 
classes  outside  of  the  peasant  population,  was  never- 
theless expressing  the  feelings  of  the  peasant  masses 
in  the  resolution  stating  that  "the  elaboration  of 
land  reforms  is  to  be  based  ...  on  the  transfer  of 
all  lands  now  belonging  to  the  state,  monasteries, 
churches,  and  private  persons  to  the  possession  of 
the  nation." 

We  must,  however,  distinguish  between  national- 
ization as  understood  by  the  peasant  masses,  and  as 


174    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

conceived  by  the  various  political  parties  and  ideol- 
ogists who  advocate  nationalization  in  one  form  or 
another.  The  latter  mean  by  the  word,  either  that 
the  state  shall  own  the  land  and  rent  it  to  the  peas- 
ants, or  that  the  state  shall  actually  operate  all  land 
as  one  big  industry,  the  peasant  being  merely  a 
worker  of  the  state.  But  what  the  peasant  means, 
when  he  says  that  the  land  shall  become  the  property 
of  the  nation,  is  that  the  nation  shall  acquire  con- 
trol of  all  the  lands  not  worked  by  their  owners  and 
i^  shall  distribute  them  among  those  who  till  the  soil 
with  their  own  labor.  The  peasant  does  not  favor 
nationalization  in  the  sense  that  all  the  land,  includ- 
ing his,  shall  revert  to  the  ownership  of  the  state. 
As  Kautsky  says:  ''Under  no  circumstances  will 
they  (the  peasants)  consent  to  turn  their  own  land 
over  to  the  possession  of  the  state."  Maslov  speak- 
ing of  the  resolutions  of  the  Peasant  Union  favoring 
nationalization  of  land,  says  that  the  petty  land- 
holders whom  the  Union  represented  ''dream  only  of 
rendering  inviolate  their  own  individual  ownership." 
And  Lenine,  the  boldest  champion  of  nationalization 
of  land,  is  constrained  to  admit  that  nationalization 
does  not  mean  to  the  peasant  that  the  state  shall 
operate  the  land  as  a  vast  industry.  In  his  report  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  unification  congress  of  the 
various  socialist  (Marxian)  parties,  held  in  1906,  he 
says:  "The  partitionists  (a  section  of  the  conference) 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  175 

arguing  against  nationalization,  tell  me  that  the 
peasant  does  not  want  what  he  says  he  wants,  when 
he  speaks  of  nationaUzation.  Judge  not  by  the  word 
but  by  the  substance  of  the  matter  they  say.  The 
peasant  wants  private  owTiership,  the  right  to  sell 
his  land,  and  the  words  'God's  land,'  etc.,  are  only 
a  reflection  of  his  desire  to  take  the  land  away 
from  the  landlord.  All  that  is  true,  I  replied  to  the 
partitionists."  However,  many  of  the  leaders  of  the 
sociaHst  revolutionary  party  resolutely  deny  that 
the  peasant  wishes  to  come  into  individual  o-vvnership 
of  the  land. 

In  connection  with  this  hunger  for  land  it  is  es- 
sential to  point  out  the  peasant's  attitude  toward 
the  landlord.  It  is  not,  of  course,  one  of  friendship 
or  good-will.  The  peasant  has  not  yet  forgotten  the 
days  of  serfdom,  when  he  was  merely  a  piece  of  prop- 
erty in  the  hands  of  the  nobles.  In  nearly  every 
village  there  are  men,  now  gray-haired  and  wrinkled, 
who  vividly  remember  the  days  of  serfdom,  and  who 
on  Sundays  and  hohdays,  at  family  gatherings 
or  village  assembhes,  delight  in  recounting  their 
former  experiences  on  the  landed  estates.  However, 
to  the  credit  of  the  peasant  be  it  said,  that  he  bears 
no  grudge  against  the  landlords  for  their  past  sins. 
He  is  not  actuated  by  a  desire  to  wreak  vengeance 
for  former  misdeeds.  In  all  of  his  complaints  and 
appeals  to  the  government  he  never  spoke  of  these. 


176    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

He  is  chiefly  interested  in  removing  present  injus- 
tices— which  to  him  means  removing  the  landlords 
from  the  land,  to  which,  as  I  have  already  empha- 
sized, he  believes  they  have  no  right,  no  more  than  to 
a  monopoly  of  the  air  or  water.  He  blames  them 
chiefly  for  his  own  wretched  condition.  For  a  long 
time  he  was  even  under  the  impression  that  the  Czar 
wished  to  give  their  land  to  him,  and  had  issued  a 
decree  to  that  effect,  but  that  they  had  stolen  it  and 
prevented  its  enactment.  Moreover,  he  saw  the 
landlords  showered  with  privileges,  and  himself 
swamped  with  repressions.  The  officials  favored 
them,  the  law  favored  them.  Both  oppressed  him. 
All  these  conditions  have  bred  in  the  mouzhik  a  feel- 
ing of  deep-seated  hostility  toward  the  landlords,  the 
holders  of  that  precious  possession  which  he  thinks 
is  his  by  right.  He  would  fain  be  friends  with  them, 
if  they  would  only  turn  their  land  over  to  him.  If  he 
at  times  resorts  to  violence,  it  is  because  he  feels 
himself  grossly  abused  by  them,  and  sees  no  means 
of  removing  the  grievance  except  through  violent 
direct  action. 

Now  that  we  ha"we  surveyed  the  conditions  under 
which  the  peasant  has  been  living,  the  ideas  which 
these  conditions  have  created,  as  exemplified  in  his 
attitude  toward  government,  society,  law,  property, 
labor;  now  that  we  have  learned  of  the  desires  and 
aspirations  of  the  peasant,  the  inevitable  conclusion 


y 


THE  IDEOLOGY  OF  THE  PEASANT  177 

is  forced  upon  us,  that  as  far  as  he  is  concerned,  the 
Russian  Revolution  never  could  be  essentially  a 
political  event  Uke  the  French,  American,  and  the 
various  mild  English  revolutions,  but  that  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  it  was  destined  to  crystallize 
into  a  mighty  crusade  for  fundamental  radical 
social  changes,  or,  to  put  it  more  concretely,  into  a 
social  war,  a  class  war,  a  war  against  the  landlord 
class,  and  not  merely  against  the  autocratic  regime. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  peasant  would  have  gladly 
supported  the  Czar  if  Nicholas  had  had  foresight  and 
intelhgence  enough  to  enable  him  to  realize  his 
aspirations.  The  peasant  has  as  yet  manifested 
no  keen  hunger  for  political  rights,  not  because 
he  is  averse  to  them,  but  because  he  has  not  yet 
come  to  appreciate  their  importance,  and  because 
he  feels  in  a  sort  of  mysterious  way  that  a  favor- 
able reversal  of  his  social  and  economic  position 
will  usher  in  a  thoroughgoing  improvement  in  every 
other  phase  of  his  life.  As  one  of  the  delegates  at  the 
congress  of  the  Peasant  Union  in  1905  exclaimed: 
''  WTien  we  get  land,  we'll  get  everything  else."  That 
seems  to  be  the  prevalent  feeUng  among  the  peas- 
antry. At  the  congresses  of  the  Peasant  Union  there 
were  delegates,  who  indeed,  spoke  of  the  necessity  of 
waging  war  for  freedom  as  well  as  for  land,  but  even 
these  deputies,  says  V.  Groman  in  his  exhaustive 
summary  of  the  work  of  these  congresses,  stressed 


178    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

land  above  everything  else.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that 
the  slogan  "Land  and  Freedom,"  as  much  as  that  of 
"Land  to  the  People,"  has  been  the  watchword  of 
the  agrarian  movement  in  Russia.  But  the  word 
freedom  is  used  in  a  loose,  hazy  sense,  and  does  not 
express  any  definite  poHtical  or  even  cultural  aims. 
Of  these  the  peasant  is  only  now  beginning  to  think. 


CHAPTER   XI 

BATTLING  FOR  LAND 

Strange  how  revolutions  occur!  Many  of  us  are 
under  the  conviction  that  they  are  the  creation  of 
leaders,  agitators,  who  after  insidious  planning  and 
plotting  issue  a  secret  order,  and  a  revolution  stalks 
forth  in  full  blast  like  an  army  to  battle  when  the 
command  is  given.  Were  this  really  so,  were  leaders 
so  altogether  omnipotent,  there  would  scarcely  be  a 
community  in  the  world  but  would  be  in  the  throes 
of  perpetual  revolution,  for  there  is  hardly  a  com- 
munity, but  harbors  certain  disaffected  spirits  who, 
for  motives  base  or  noble,  would  gladly  disrupt  the 
prevailing  order  of  things.  Fortunately,  however, 
leaders  can  do  nothing  without  followers — and  it  is 
only  a  truism  to  say  that  there  can  be  no  followers, 
unless  there  is  a  cause  and  a  will  to  follow.  Now 
leaders  may  be  instrumental  in  rousing  this  will,  in 
transmuting  it  into  burning  words,  in  formulating 
it  into  concrete  issues,  but  they  can  neither  create 
nor  destroy  it.  Who  ever  thinks  of  the  American  rev- 
olution as  being  chiefly  the  accomphshment  of  George 
Washington,  Patrick  Henry  and  the  other  valiant 
spirits  of  the  colonial  days?    It  was  not  they,  their 


180    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

will,  that  made  the  American  revolution;  it  was  the 
American  revolution  that  made  them.  If  their 
pleadings  and  exhortations  had  not  been  the  verbal 
expressions  of  the  sentiments  and  desires  of  the 
embittered  colonists,  they  could  no  more  have 
stirred  and  led  them  into  a  crusade  against  the 
mother-country,  than  they  could  set  an  iceberg 
aflame.  And  who  ever  can  think  of  the  overthrow 
of  the  Czar  in  March,  1917,  as  the  feat  of  a  group 
of  clever  conspirators,  leaders  of  revolutionary- 
parties?  The  March  revolution  was  as  much  a  sur- 
prise to  these  leaders  as  it  was  to  the  outside  world. 
A  real  revolution,  a  rising  of  the  masses,  is  an  event 
of  spontaneous  social  combustion.  The  spark  may 
be  thrust  from  above,  but  the  explosion  always 
occurs  below,  and,  of  course,  there  never  can  be  an 
explosion  unless  there  are  chemicals  to  explode. 

This  at  any  rate  is  true  of  the  peasant  revolutions 
in  Russia.  Some  of  these  have  since  been  identified 
with  names  of  leaders,  just  as  some  mihtary  vic- 
tories in  history  have  been  linked  with  the  names  of 
generals,  though  long  ago  Tolstoy  has  pointed  out 
in  ''War  and  Peace,"  that  it  is  soldiers  who  always 
win  battles.  Not  the  least  striking  feature  of  the 
peasant  revolutions  is  the  fact  that  leaders  have 
been  able  to  lead  in  so  far  and  as  long  as  they  have 
followed  the  desires  of  their  constituents.  Their 
personal  character,  social  position,  religious  affilia- 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  181 

tions,  have  not  interested  the  peasant.  He  has 
been  chiefly  concerned  with  their  aims.  If  these 
taUied  with  his  own,  he  clung  to  them  with  all  the 
zest  and  desperation  of  a  zealot. 

The  first  and  one  of  the  most  sanguinary  peasant 
revolutions  occurred  in  1669-1670.  It  was  led  by 
Stenka  Razin,  now  a  national  hero,  beloved  by  all 
the  peasants  in  the  Volga  region,  his  name  and  deeds 
hallowed  in  a  multitude  of  songs  and  stories  and 
soon  to  be  commemorated  in  a  statue  at  Moscow. 

Stenka  Razin  was  a  cossack.  In  1665  he  and  his 
two  brothers  participated  in  a  miUtary  campaign 
against  Poland  under  the  command  of  Yurii  Dol- 
goruki.  The  oldest  Razin  was  the  chief  of  the 
cossack  division.  One  day  he  appeared  before 
Yurii  Dolgoruki  and  asked  for  the  release  of  his  men 
who  yearned  to  go  back  to  their  haunts  on  the  Don. 
Being  volunteer  soldiers,  like  all  the  cossacks  of  the 
time,  the  cossack  chief  was  quite  within  his  rights  in 
petitioning  for  the  release  of  his  division.  Dolgoruki, 
however,  denied  the  petition,  whereupon  Razin  left 
of  his  own  accord.  He  was  searched,  apprehended, 
hanged.  It  is  reported  that  Stenka  and  Frol  Razin 
witnessed  the  execution  of  their  older  brother. 
Stenka  was  outraged.  His  brother — cossack  het- 
man — strung  up  on  a  tree  like  a  dog  for  exercising 
the  inaUenable  right  of  a  free  warrior,  a  free  man! 
Not  only  was  his  brotherly  love  wounded,  his  cossack 


182    THE  RUSSL\N  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

pride  was  stabbed,  and  he  vowed  that  he  should 
avenge  the  cruel  deed  of  Yurii  Dolgoruki.  He  would 
punish  the  hoyars  and  voyevodas — nobles  and  rulers 
of  the  time,  who  had  arrogated  unto  themselves  all 
poHtical  power,  and  were  exercising  it  with  contemp- 
tuous indifference  for  the  rights  and  conveniences 
of  others.  Stenka  resolved  to  strip  them  of  this 
power. 

But  how  was  he  to  do  this?  He  was  an  obscure 
cossack.  He  had  no  following,  and  no  wealth,  no 
prestige  with  which  to  attract  one. 

Here  his  instinct  for  leadership  came  into  play. 
He  was,  indeed,  a  shrewd,  far-seeing  pohtician.  He 
heard  the  rmnble  of  discontent  reverberate  from  one 
end  of  the  country  to  the  other — it  was  only  a  few 
years  after  the  fettering  of  the  peasant  to  the  land 
and  to  the  will  of  the  nobles.  He  saw  with  what 
ferocity  the  latter  were  treating  the  newly-made 
serf.  He  saw  the  mouzhik  fleeing  in  the  thousands 
from  bondage,  hiding  in  woods,  fields,  river-banks, 
h\dng  on  loot  and  plunder,  forming  into  bands  and 
marching  forth  often  in  clear  daylight  to  vent  hot 
wrath  upon  their  oppressors.  He  saw  castles  aban- 
doned to  the  torch,  their  owners  strung  up  on  trees, 
their  heads  chopped  off.  He  saw  the  spirit  of  re- 
bellion, rapine,  murder,  stalk  through  the  land,  and 
he  resolved  to  capitalize  the  forces  behind  it  for  his 
own  ends. 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  183 

The  historian  Kostomarov  assures  us  that  Stenka 
was  not  ambitious,  that  he  coveted  neither  poUtical 
power  nor  material  aggrandizement.  Nor  on  the 
other  hand  was  he  at  all  actuated  by  altruistic  mo- 
tives. He  was  no  idealist.  The  sufferings  of  the 
peasant  did  not  stir  him  to  compassion.  He  was  in 
fact  a  man  without  sympathy  for  his  fellow-mortals. 
It  was  hke  play  for  him  to  chop  off  a  man's  leg  or 
arm,  or  to  thrust  a  hook  into  his  ribs  and  hoist  him 
up  a  pole.  He  was  no  villain,  but  his  manner  and 
conduct  were  at  times  shockingly  savage.  The  only 
reason  he  resolved  to  make  the  liberation  of  the 
peasant  his  cause,  was  because  he  wanted  an  army 
of  crusaders  against  the  nobles,  and  the  peasant  was 
ripe  for  such  a  crusade. 

His  magnificent  personahty  was  an  invaluable 
asset  to  him.  Tall,  massive,  powerful,  with  ghnting 
eyes,  of  indomitable  will-power,  keen  ingenuity, 
with  not  a  shadow  of  fear  in  him,  he  commended 
the  admiration  of  both  friend  and  enemy.  A 
man  of  many  and  varied  moods,  now  gay,  now 
gloomy,  now  given  to  dissipation,  now  sunk  in 
reverie,  contemptuous  of  rehgion,  of  law,  of  social 
restraint,  without  honor  in  his  deaUngs  with  the 
enemy,  he  was,  nevertheless,  always  truthful  and 
generous  to  friends  and  supporters.  He  was  com- 
manding, but  never  haughty;  severe,  but  never 
imposing.    Withal  he  was  very  democratic.    Caste 


184    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

he  despised.  In  days  of  greatest  triumph  he  Uved  in 
a  sod-hut  hke  the  other  cossacks,  ate  the  food  they 
ate,  wore  the  clothes  they  wore,  though  he  had  booty 
enough  to  wallow  in  luxury. 

He  opened  his  campaign  cautiously  as  though 
groping  his  way  to  the  most  promising  path  of  pm*- 
suit.  His  initial  exploit  was  an  act  of  pure  piracy. 
With  a  small  band  of  cossacks  he  captured  a  fleet  of 
supply  and  prison  barges  on  the  Volga.  The  cap- 
tain of  the  fleet  and  all  the  officers  including  a  monk 
who  was  guard  of  certain  church  supplies,  he  un- 
ceremoniously drowned.  The  crews  and  the  party 
of  exiles  that  were  on  their  way  to  serve  sentences  in 
the  Astrakhan  jails,  he  immediatelj''  hberated,  and 
addressed  them  in  the  following  words: 

*'I  extend  to  you  full  freedom.  I  shall  not  compel 
any  of  you  to  abide  with  me.  But  whoever  wants 
to  join  me,  shall  become  a  free  cossack.  I  have  come 
to  wage  war  only  against  the  boyars  and  the  rich. 
I  am  prepared  to  divide  everything  with  the  poor  and 
common  people." 

These  words  soon  spread  like  wildfire  and  caused 
joyous  commotion  in  serf-Russia.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  serf  had  been  eagerly  waiting  for  some- 
one to  address  to  him  such  a  message,  and  now  that 
it  was  uttered  he  was  ready  to  burst  into  action.  At 
last  a  redeemer  had  arisen  sent  by  God  to  punish 
and  overthrow  the  landlord-tyrants,  and  to  give  to 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  185 

him  freedom,  land,  riches — the  things  he  coveted  so 
deeply !  From  all  over  the  country,  from  farm,  forest, 
jail,  barracks,  he  fled  to  enlist  in  Stenka's  ranks.  He 
worshiped  the  cossack  chief,  called  him  affection- 
ately Little  Father,  trusted  implicitly  in  his  wisdom, 
and  beheved  whole-heartedly  in  his  good  luck  and 
superhuman  powers.  Stenka's  fame  spread  rapidly, 
and  his  strength  grew  greater  from  day  to  day. 

We  read  and  hear  much  these  days  of  propaganda. 
To  the  average  American  it  is  a  new  word  with  a 
sinister  meaning  and  rightly  so,  in  view  of  the  das- 
tardly purposes  to  which  the  organs  of  pubHcity 
have  been  put.  Propaganda,  however,  is  an  ancient 
weapon,  as  old  as  the  greed  and  goodness  of  man. 
Stenka  Razin  was  surely  a  master  of  it.  Astute, 
clear-sighted,  with  a  profound  understanding  of  the 
workings  of  the  human  imagination,  he  fully  appre- 
ciated the  power  of  the  weapon  of  publicity,  of  mak- 
ing known  to  the  peasant  the  aims  of  his  campaign, 
and  he  spared  no  effort  to  wield  this  weapon  as 
strenuously  and  extensively  as  circumstances  per- 
mitted. He  organized  a  corps  of  so-called  agitators 
and  dispatched  them  far  and  wide  to  proclaim  his 
message  to  the  peasant  population.  "We  come," 
these  emissaries  said,  "from  our  Uttle  father  Stepan 
Timofeyevitch  to  destroy  your  voyevodas  and  to  set 
you  free,"  words  which  could  not  but  inspire  to 
action  the  chafing  fettered  mouzhik.     Stenka  also 


186    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

composed  proclamations,  letters,  as  they  were  then 
called,  explaining  the  object  of  his  crusade,  and  he 
had  them  smuggled  into  serf-communities  on  big 
estates  and  read  to  the  peasants.  They  were  like 
lighted  matches  dropped  into  inflammable  sub- 
stances. The  peasants  banded  together,  pounced 
upon  their  masters,  destroyed  their  homes,  seized 
movable  property  and  then  marched  in  a  body  to 
join  Stenka's  forces.  Everywhere  the  peasant  wel- 
comed the  signal  to  rise  in  rebellion  against  the  land- 
lord-nobles. 

Whenever  Stenka  moved  to  attack  a  village  or 
city  he  always  had  his  emissaries  precede  him.  In 
bolshevik-like  fashion  they  sought  to  acquaint  the 
opposing  army  and  the  population  in  enemy  terri- 
tory with  the  purpose  of  his  campaign,  and  to  per- 
suade both  soldier  and  civilian  to  turn  upon  their 
superiors.  In  such  a  manner  Stenka  won  his  great- 
est victory — the  conquest  of  the  rich  city  of  Astrak- 
han. He  advanced  upon  the  city  in  barges,  and 
before  he  was  even  within  attacking  distance  of  the 
opposing  army  his  propagandists  had  already  fil- 
tered their  way  into  the  ranks  of  the  latter,  and 
were  zealously  spreading  the  message  that  Stenka 
was  their  redeemer,  that  he  was  coming  to  liberate 
them  from  the  oppression  of  the  nobles,  and  that  if 
they  would  join  him,  they  could  easily  capture  the 
city  of  Astrakhan,  and  aU  the  wealth  there  would 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  187 

be  theirs  to  divide  and  enjoy  as  they  pleased.  The 
message  electrified  the  enemy  soldiers,  who  were  as  a 
rule  peasants  or  of  peasant  origin.  They  seized 
their  officers,  tied,  strangled,  and  flung  them  into 
the  Volga.  When  Stenka  drew  near,  they  shouted: 
**We  greet  you,  little  father,  the  subduer  of  all 
our  tyrants."  To  which  Stenka  replied:  "I  greet 
you,  brothers!  Revenge  yourselves  upon  your  tor- 
mentors, who  have  made  you  suffer  worse  than  had 
the  Turks  and  Tartars.  I  have  come  to  grant  you 
liberties  and  privileges.  You  are  my  brothers,  my 
children,  and  you  shall  be  as  rich  as  I  am,  if  you  re- 
main brave  and  faithful  to  me."  Uproarious  joy 
greeted  these  words,  which  when  they  reached  the 
city,  conveyed  there  by  special  messengers,  stirred 
the  poor  into  ecstacy.  House-maids,  cooks,  jan- 
itors, street-cleaners,  coachmen,  barge-haulers, 
water-carriers,  all  those  who  were  of  the  servant 
class,  men  and  women,  made  common  cause  and 
launched  into  a  fierce  crusade  against  their  masters 
and  rulers,  tied,  lashed,  stabbed  them,  sparing 
neither  women,  nor  children,  nor  even  priests. 
They  swarmed  round  public  buildings — jails,  court- 
houses, military  offices — smashed  doors  and  win- 
dows, broke  inside,  hurled  piles  of  documents  into 
the  street,  set  them  ablaze,  and  danced  hilariously 
around  the  flames  as  did  the  revolutionaries  in 
Petrograd  in  March,  1917.     When  Stenka  moved 


188    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

into  the  city  it  was  already  in  possession  of  the 
mobs,  and  in  accordance  with  his  custom  on  such 
occasions  he  announced  to  his  followers  that  they 
could  do  whatever  they  pleased,  a  privilege  of  which 
they  proceeded  to  take  immediate  advantage. 
They  moved  into  the  homes  of  the  rich,  dressed  in 
their  garments,  ate  of  their  food,  quaffed  their 
wines,  danced  in  their  halls,  rode  in  their  carriages, 
and  married  even  their  daughters  and  wives.  The 
latter  dared  not  resist,  and  those  that  did,  paid 
with  their  lives.  A  more  complete  reversal  of 
social  relationships  than  that  which  followed  in  the 
city  of  Astrakhan  after  its  seizure  by  the  serf-element 
can  hardly  be  conceived.  This  was  the  first  instance 
in  Russian  history  when  the  so-called  lower  classes, 
or  proletarians,  as  we  should  call  them  in  modern 
terminology,  gained  complete  control  of  a  big  rich 
city. 

Stenka's  victories  caused  a  panic  among  the 
nobles  and  officials.  Town  after  town  capitulated  to 
the  cossack  leader  of  the  rebellion.  Armies  sent 
against  him  were  persuaded  to  join  him  and  turn 
against  their  commanders.  Even  in  Moscow,  the 
citadel  of  bureaucracy  and  landlordism,  voices  rose 
counselling  the  government  to  throw  open  the  gates 
to  the  rebels  and  to  welcome  Stenka  with  bread  and 
salt. 

These  seditious  utterances  intensified  the  terror  of 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  189 

the  landlord-nobles.  The  spirit  of  insurrection  was 
creeping  into  the  capitol,  the  very  seat  of  their  power, 
and  threatened  to  devour  the  very  foundation  of 
their  authority  and  safety!  To  combat  the  revolu- 
tion they  not  only  hastened  to  mobilize  a  powerful 
army,  but  also  opened  a  vigorous  propaganda  cam- 
paign against  Stenka  Razin,  so  as  to  blast  the  moral 
support  he  was  everywhere  gaining  among  the 
peasant  population.  They  knew  how  loyal  the 
peasant  was  to  the  Czar,  and  how  devoted  he  was 
to  the  church,  so  they  proclaimed  Stenka  a  foe 
of  both,  a  traitor  and  a  heathen.  Priests  denounced 
him  as  the  antichrist,  Satan  incarnate,  luring 
the  ignorant  into  perfidy  and  damnation.  In  such 
manner  the  officials  and  landlords  had  hoped  to 
cause  mutiny  in  his  ranks  and  to  hasten  the  collapse 
of  the  rebel  movement. 

But  they  thoroughly  misjudged  the  psychology  of 
the  peasant,  even  as  so  many  foreign  diplomats 
to-day  have  misjudged  it,  much  to  their  own  dis- 
comfiture and  often  disaster  and  shame.  Being  of 
a  concrete  turn  of  mind  with  only  elementary  per- 
ceptions of  life,  with  no  political  or  racial  or  social 
traditions,  the  peasant  has  always  gladly  rallied 
round  leaders  who  were  waging  wars  for  his  eman- 
cipation regardless  of  the  racial  origin,  pohtical  pro- 
fessions and  rehgious  affihations  of  these  leaders,  re- 
gardless even  of  their  personal  character.    The  serfs 


190    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

then  as  well  as  the  mouzhik  of  to-day  have  judged 
their  leaders  not  by  what  others  have  said  of  them, 
but  by  what  they  know  of  their  aims  and  activities 
from  their  personal  contact  with  them.  Stenka 
might  be  a  heathen,  a  traitor,  but  wherever  he 
conquered  territory,  he  hberated  serfs,  gave  them 
land  and  booty,  allowed  them  to  attend  to  their 
own  administrative  affairs.  That  the  peasant  knew, 
and  that  rendered  him  impervious  to  the  ''counter- 
revolutionary" appeals  of  Stenka's  enemies. 

Stenka,  however,  felt  the  need  of  striking  back  at 
the  propaganda  of  his  foes.  He  would  not  run 
the  risk  of  their  being  able  at  some  unforeseen  time 
to  convert  their  accusations  into  a  rallying  slogan 
against  him.  He  countered  their  attacks  upon  him 
by  announcing  that  he  was  not  fighting  against  the 
offices  of  the  Czar  and  the  church,  but  against  the 
nobility  and  against  all  who  were  in  league  with  the 
nobility.  The  ruling  Czar,  he  accused,  was  in  league 
with  them,  the  ruling  priests  were  in  their  hire.  Both 
Czar  and  priest  were  corrupt,  cruel — enemies  of  the 
people.  He  would  put  a  new  Czar  upon  the  throne 
and  a  new  patriarch  at  the  head  of  the  church.  He 
would  lift  into  power  the  Czar's  son,  who  was 
falsely  reported  dead,  who  had  only  fled  from  the 
tyranny  of  his  father  but  was  now  in  his  (Stenka's) 
care.  The  Czarevitch,  he  announced,  was  a  friend 
of  the  people,  and  as  such  would  welcome  the  exter- 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  191 

mination  of  nobles  and  officials  so  as  to  pave  the  way 
for  the  liberation  of  the  serfs.  He  also  promised  to 
place  at  the  head  of  the  church  the  deposed  pa- 
triach  Nikon,  a  man  of  God,  and  a  lover  of  the 
people. 

The  propaganda  of  the  officials  and  landlords  fell 
upon  barren  soil.  The  peasant  remained  attached 
to  Stenka. 

The  revolution  swept  all  of  southern  Russia  in  the 
Don  and  Volga  basins,  and  spread  swiftly  north- 
ward. Everywhere  the  peasant  welcomed  Stenka 
Razin  as  a  redeemer,  a  saviour,  and  Stenka  did  all 
in  his  power  in  word  and  act,  to  retain  the  faith  the 
mouzhik  had  reposed  in  him.  He  shared  his  booty 
with  his  followers  and  treated  them  all  alike,  as 
equals. 

For  over  a  year  his  crusade  rocked  Russia.  Mobs 
of  infuriated  peasants  swept  over  the  fertile  plains, 
sacked  estates,  burned  castles,  devastated  cities  and 
villages,  murdered  thousands  of  thousands  of  land- 
lords and  officials.  Sooner  or  later,  however,  the 
movement  was  destined  to  collapse.  In  fact  the 
larger  it  grew  the  weaker  it  became.  Its  chief  defect 
was  the  absence  of  a  well-built  central  organism,  that 
could  direct  and  coordinate  its  activities  at  the 
front,  in  the  rear  and  in  the  enemy's  camps.  Because 
of  that  the  rebels  had  no  well-discipUned,  properly- 
trained  army;  they  lacked  war  suppUes,  and,  what 


192    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

was  equally  fatal,  good  military  leaders.  Stenka's 
subordinates  were  brave  fighters  but  mediocre  gen- 
erals. In  the  end  the  Moscow  government  strangled 
the  revolution.  Stenka  and  his  brother  Frol  were 
captured.  Put  in  chains  and  hitched  to  a  lumbering 
cart,  they  were  led  on  foot  over  the  pubUc  thorough- 
fares, to  the  capitol,  exhibited  to  the  populace  in 
their  punishment  and  ignominy  as  a  warning  to 
would-be  defiers  of  estabhshed  authority  of  what 
would  happen  to  them,  should  they  venture  to  follow 
in  the  footsteps  of  the  cossack  rebels.  Frol  com- 
plained of  his  tortures  and  wept.  But  not  Stenka. 
He  was  stoic,  never  muttered  a  word  of  complaint. 
Limb  after  limb  was  slowly  severed  from  his  body, 
his  bones  were  broken  one  by  one,  his  hands  and 
feet  were  twisted  and  turned  and  wrenched  and 
chopped  off;  water,  now  hot,  now  cold,  now  salted, 
was  poured  alternately  over  his  bleeding  flesh — all  in 
an  effort  to  wring  a  confession  of  guilt  from  him. 
But  he  would  make  no  confession,  conscious  to  the 
end  that  he  had  committed  no  wrong.  The  only 
words  he  spoke  during  those  hours  of  excruciating 
torture  were  words  of  admonition  to  his  brother 
Frol  for  being  so  weak  and  womanish  in  his  suffer- 
ings. At  last  in  accordance  with  the  barbarous 
custom  of  the  times  he  was  quartered  ahve. 

The  spirit  of  rebelhon,  however,  did  not  die  in  the 
peasant.     It  lay  smouldering  in  him  and  whenever 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  193 

an  opportune  occasion  came  it  flared  up  again  in 
blazing  fury.  A  century  later  such  an  occasion  arose. 
It  was  in  the  reign  of  Katherine  the  second,  and  the 
empress  herself  unwittingly  supplied  the  spark  that 
set  the  fuel  of  rebellion  aflame.  She,  as  is  known, 
had  abolished  compulsory  mihtary  service  for 
nobles.  Now  the  peasant  had  somehow  imbibed  the 
fantastic  notion  that  the  reason  he  was  turned  into  a 
serf  was,  because  the  Czar  was  so  poor  that  he  had 
no  way  of  compensating  the  nobles  for  their  services 
other  than  through  serf-labor,  and  he  believed  de- 
voutly that  as  soon  as  other  means  of  remunerating 
the  nobles  should  be  discovered,  serfdom  would  be 
aboUshed.  Therefore,  when  Katherine  no  longer 
required  the  nobles  to  render  army  service  to  the 
state,  the  peasant  demanded  his  liberation.  He 
saw  no  reason  why  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
continue  in  bondage  to  the  nobles  when  it  was  no 
longer  necessary  to  compensate  them  for  special  serv- 
ice. He  cried  out  for  freedom,  and  his  cry  was  con- 
stantly growing  louder  and  more  ominous.  Katherine 
and  the  nobles  sought  to  stifle  this  cry  by  force  and 
to  bring  the  peasant  to  submission.  But — far  away 
in  the  wilds  of  the  Orenbourg  steppes  a  cossack  had 
heard  it  and  it  was  sweet  music  to  his  ears. 

Yemelyan  Pougatchev  was  the  cossack's  name — a 
name  well  known  in  Russian  history.  Tall,  stately, 
with  shaggy  eyebrows,  overhanging  deepset  cunning 


194    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

eyes,  of  obscure  origin,  entirely  illiterate,  of  dis- 
solute habits,  valiant,  sagacious,  dauntless,  bred 
in  the  cossack  tradition  of  hate  against  tyrannous 
restraints,  he,  like  Stenka,  despised  the  nobles  and 
officials  of  Russia,  but  unlike  Stenka  he  was  ani- 
mated by  a  big  personal  ambition.  He  dreamed  of 
ascending  the  throne,  a  goal  he  could  not  attain 
until  after  he  had  overpowered  the  nobles.  A  master 
psychologist  he  seized  upon  the  current  spirit  of  un- 
rest among  the  serfs  and  played  upon  it  so  skill- 
fully, that  his  ranks  soon  swelled  with  thousands  of 
followers  and  he  launched  his  campaign  against  the 
established  rulers.  To  make  himself  more  accep- 
table to  the  peasant  he  annomiced  that  he  was  none 
other  than  Peter  the  third  whom  his  wife  Katherine 
was  supposed  to  have  ordered  murdered.  He  pro- 
claimed that  the  nobles  and  the  empress  had  sought 
his  death,  because  he  had  proposed  to  abolish  serf- 
dom by  offering  to  compensate  the  nobles  with  a 
certain  amount  of  specie  for  losses  they  might  sus- 
tain through  the  deprivation  of  serf-labor.  For- 
tunately, he  explained,  he  eluded  the  assassins  and 
escaped,  and  now  that  he,  the  only  rightful  claimant 
to  the  throne,  was  free  once  more,  he  would  wage 
pitiless  war  against  the  cruel  empress  and  the  nobles, 
and,  wherever  victorious,  he  would  abolish  serfdom 
and  distribute  the  land  and  other  possessions  of  his 
enemies  among  the  serfs. 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  195 

Pougatchev's  message  stirred  the  peasant.  Liberty 
and  Land !  These  he  was  promised  by  a  new  saviour. 
Of  course  he  would  fight  under  Pougatchev — fight 
until  death! 

From  the  Urals  to  Saratov,  Russia  was  once  more 
convulsed  with  rebellion.  Serfs  from  everywhere 
fled  to  Pougatchev's  quarters  and  joined  his  armies. 
Thousands  upon  thousands  of  manors  were  burned, 
their  owners  hideously  tortured  and  put  to  death. 
Armies  sent  against  the  rebel-forces  were  hurled  back 
and  often  were  actually  won  over  by  skillful  propa- 
ganda. The  Moscow  government  for  a  long  time 
seemed  helpless  and  was  threatened  with  annihila- 
tion. Pougatchev,  of  course,  reahzing  that  his  suc- 
cess depended  upon  the  faith  of  the  serf  in  his  mission, 
abohshed  serfdom  in  conquered  territory,  and,  true 
to  his  word,  he  divided  the  possessions  of  the  land- 
lords among  his  followers.  Subordinates  whom  he 
caught  appropriating  disproportionately  large  shares 
of  booty  he  summarily  put  to  death.  In  outward 
appearance,  in  word  and  in  act,  Pougatchev  betrayed 
nothing  of  his  far-reaching  personal  ambitions.  He 
conducted  himself  hke  a  true  crusader  for  the  rights 
of  the  bondaged  peasant. 

The  Pougatchev  rebellion,  however,  like  that  of 
Stenka  Razin,  suffering  from  a  lack  of  trained  or- 
ganizers, lacking  a  powerful  centralized  war-machine, 
was   destined   to   collapse.    The   Moscow   govern- 


196    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ment  in  the  end  crushed  it.  Pougatchev  was  appre- 
hended. A  weaker  man  than  Stenka  Razin  he 
broke  down  under  torture  and  made  a  full  confession 
of  his  plot.  That,  however,  did  not  save  him — he, 
too,  was  quartered  alive. 

Thus  ended  the  mightiest  two  insurrections  of  the 
Russian  peasant  prior  to  the  revolution  of  1905. 

In  these  insmTections  we  clearly  discern  the  under- 
lining general  tendency  of  the  peasant  revolutionary 
movement,  its  fundamental  aims  and  purposes  and 
methods.  It  has  been  first  and  foremost  a  struggle 
against  landlords,  a  class  struggle  indeed,  bitter  and 
ferocious.  Wliatever  the  immediate  or  exciting  cause, 
whether  it  be  the  personal  tyranny  of  the  land- 
lord, or  high  prices  of  rent,  or  low  prices  of  labor, 
or  miendurable  usury;  whatever  the  mode  of  warfare 
whether  outright  kilhng  of  the  landlord,  or  lashing, 
imprisonment,  or  destruction  of  his  estate,  or  all  of 
these  combined;  whatever  the  period  in  histor}^ 
whether  before  or  during  or  after  the  emancipation, 
in  the  seventeenth  or  in  the  twentieth  centuries,  the 
fundamental  goal  of  the  rebellious  peasant  has  al- 
ways been  the  same — the  winning  of  land  and  free- 
dom. 

Though  in  the  interval  between  the  Pougatchev 
uprising  and  the  Revolution  of  1905  there  was  no 
nation-wide  insurrection  of  peasants,  yet  scarcely  a 
year  passed   but  was  marked  by  sanguinary  up- 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  197 

risings  here  and,  there  in  various  sections  of  the 
country.  According  to  the  Ministry  of  Inter- 
nal Affairs  between  the  years  of  1835-54,  144  land- 
lords were  killed  by  mutinous  peasants,  and  in  the 
interval  of  1835-44,  298  peasant  men  and  118  women 
were  banished  to  Siberia  for  assassinating  their  mas- 
ters. During  and  following  the  Crimean  war  prac- 
tically the  whole  of  serf-Russia  was  seething  with 
local  revolts,  which  necessitated  the  use  of  military 
arms  to  quell.  During  1861-63  immediately  after 
the  emancipation  proclamation  was  made  public,  the 
peasant,  disappointed  with  the  concession  doled  to 
him,  mutinied  once  more.  Then  a  lull  followed,  and 
beginning  with  1870  insurrections  on  a  large  scale 
broke  out  again,  due  entirely  to  the  gi'owing  eco- 
nomic crisis  following  upon  the  increase  in  population 
without  corresponding  increase  in  material  resources. 
As  the  economic  crisis  gamed  in  intensity,  as  land- 
shortage  increased,  quantity  of  live-stock  decreased, 
and  famine  became  more  periodic  and  more  wide- 
spread, discontent  moimted  higher  and  uprisings 
grew  more  rampant  and  more  violent.  Beginning 
with  the  twentieth  century  the  spirit  of  unrest  swept 
all  peasant  Russia  in  Em'ope,  Caucasus  and  Siberia 
The  government  and  the  nobles  treated  outbursts  of 
revolt  not  as  a  desperate  search  after  material  self- 
satisfaction,  but  as  acts  of  wickedness,  punishable 
by  imprisonment  and  violence,  and  that  only  deep- 


198    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ened  the  exasperation  of  the  mouzhik.  In  1903-4 
the  Russian  village  was  a  veritable  smouldering 
volcano  of  unrest,  and  occasional  spurts  of  revolu- 
tionary fire  and  lava  wrought  havoc  on  numerous 
estates.    Matters  were  gradually  moving  to  a  climax. 

In  all  of  these  manifestations  of  mutiny  we  must 
note  the  absence  of  formal  revolutionary  organiza- 
tions in  the  village,  and  for  the  most  part  also  the 
absence  of  revolutionary  leaders.  Agitators  of  va- 
rious shades  of  political  opinion  were  not  lacking, 
but  at  best  they  only  accelerated  the  process  of 
revolutionary  activity.  In  fact  when  agitators  had 
first  made  their  appearance  in  the  village  in  the 
seventies,  the  peasant  looked  upon  them  with  dis- 
trust and  scorn,  drove  them  from  the  villages  and 
often  actually  turned  them  over  to  the  pohce.  In 
his  ''Virgin  Soil"  Turgenev  draws  a  masterful  pic- 
ture of  the  early  activities  of  revolutionary  propa- 
gandists in  the  village  and  the  attitude  of  the  pea- 
sant toward  them. 

Then  came  the  Revolution  of  1905.  The  uprisings 
of  the  peasant  were  a  surprise  to  the  revolutionary 
parties  as  much  as  to  the  government,  for  though 
all  knew  that  the  peasant  had  been  in  a  rebellious 
mood,  none  had  reckoned  upon  the  widespread, 
determined  war  which  he  had  suddenly  launched 
against  the  landlords.  Not  in  130  years,  since  the 
days  of  Pougatchev,  had  there  been  such  commotion 


BATTLING  FOR  L.\ND  199 

and  riotousness  in  rural  Russia.  With  every  con- 
ceivable weapon  at  hand  the  peasant  hurled  him- 
self upon  his  ancient  enemy — burned  castles,  hay 
and  grain-stacks,  seized  produce,  stock,  implements, 
and  land.  Particularly  desperate  and  sanguinary 
were  the  uprisings  against  landlords  who  offered 
resistance.  In  the  Baltic  sections  where  the  Lettish 
peasant  is  better  educated  and  better  organized,  and 
where  the  German  barons  were  notoriously  the  most 
ruthless  landlords  in  Russia,  the  battles  the  peasant 
fought  were  the  bloodiest  of  the  entire  Revolution. 
The  Revolution  of  1905  in  city  and  village  failed. 
But  the  government  realized  the  menace  of  the 
rebellious  village,  and  to  ward  off  future  outbreaks, 
it  proceeded  to  introduce  reforms.  The  legal  posi- 
tion of  the  peasant  was  somewhat  improved.  Even 
before  the  Revolution,  on  March  25th,  1903,  the 
collective  responsibility  of  the  mir  for  each  individual 
taxpayer  was  abolished.  On  the  24th  of  August  of 
the  same  year,  corporal  punishment  was  likewise 
done  away  with.  After  the  Revolution  a  few  other 
concessions  were  granted.  The  peasant  was  ad- 
mitted to  higher  schools  of  education,  and  to  various 
branches  of  government  service,  from  which  he  had 
been  previously  barred.  The  authority  of  the  Z em- 
sky  Nachalnik  over  him  was  curbed,  nominally  at 
least,  and  the  processes  of  procuring  a  passport  were 
simplified.     On   the   other   hand,   the   old   district 


200    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

courts,  juggling  balls  in  the  hands  of  intriguing 
officials  and  landlords,  remained  unchanged,  and  the 
mir  as  formerly  had  the  right  to  exile  a  member  to 
Siberia  without  trial,  while  corporal  punishment 
was  practiced  despite  its  abohtion  by  law;  and,  fur- 
thermore, the  Zemsky  Nachalnik  continued  to  exer- 
cise his  powers  of  coercion  and  intimidation. 

More  interesting  was  the  new  economic  policy  of 
the  government,  fathered  by  the  astute  Stolypin. 
His  aim  was  to  render  impotent  the  revolutionary 
movement  in  the  village,  and  to  achieve  this  he 
resolved  to  break  up  the  commune  so  as  to  destroy 
the  social  unity  of  the  peasant  and  thus  prevent 
concerted  action,  and  also  to  create  a  class  of  pros- 
perous peasant  land  proprietors,  who  in  defense  of 
their  economic  interests  would  gravitate  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  landlords  and  the  government  against  the 
poor  and  rebellious  peasant.  To  this  end  he  promul- 
gated the  now  famous  and  elaborate  homestead  act, 
according  to  which  a  peasant  might  upon  application 
separate  himself  from  the  commune,  build  up  a 
homestead,  and  enjoy  all  the  privileges  and  comforts 
that  go  with  individual  ownership  of  land. 

If  the  government  had  thrown  open  vast  areas 
of  new  lands  to  the  peasant,  free,  or  at  a  small  price, 
Stolypin's  scheme  might  have  proved,  successful. 
The  peasant  would  have  acquired  a  homestead, 
grown  attached  to  it,  and  might  have  forgotten  the 


BATTLING  FOR  LAND  201 

Revolution.  But  since  the  area  of  land  available 
for  homestead  purposes  was  very  limited,  Stoly- 
pin's  poHcy  could  not  but  result  in  failure.  In  all, 
2,400,000  heads  of  families  appHed  for  permission  to 
separate  from  the  commune,  though  government  offi- 
cials, by  all  manner  of  tricks,  sought  to  stimulate 
separation  from  the  mir  and  thus  hasten  its  break-up. 
These  appHcants,  however,  were  mostly  from  prov- 
inces that  had  only  been  recently  colonized,  or 
where,  owing  to  the  lay  of  the  land,  homesteading  had 
proved  to  be  more  desirable,  and  on  that  account 
the  commune  had  not  struck  deep  roots  there.  There 
were  fifteen  such  provinces  out  of  a  total  of  fifty  in 
European  Russia,  and  they  furnished  sixty  per  cent 
of  the  applicants  for  homesteads.  Not  all  applicants 
actually  established  homesteads.  Slightly  more 
than  half  did  not.  They  merely  hastened  to  estabUsh 
their  right  to  the  private  ownership  of  land,  so  as  to 
be  in  a  position  to  sell  it.  Only  1,140,000  heads  of 
families  had  built  homesteads.  But  many  of  these 
soon  discovered  that  owing  to  shortage  in  land  their 
separation  from  the  commune  was  a  decided  dis- 
advantage. They  had  neither  woodland,  nor  pasture, 
nor  tillable  land  sufficient  to  raise  summer  feed  for 
then'  stock  and  bread  for  themselves.  In  consequence 
many  of  them  were  compelled  to  dispose  of  a  portion 
of  their  stock,  and  in  the  case  of  the  Russian  peasant 
diminution  of  number  of  heads  of  stock  always 


202    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

leads  to  economic  deterioration.  During  the  last 
few  years  prior  to  the  Revolution  there  was  a  tend- 
ency on  the  part  of  many  homesteaders  to  return  to 
the  commune,  while  the  number  of  applicants  for 
separation  had  slumped  heavily.  In  1915  it  was  only 
one-seventh  of  what  it  had  been  in  1908,  the  year  in 
which  the  homestead  act  had  proved  most  popular. 
Stolypin's  scheme,  then,  while  it  benefitted  greatly 
a  small  number  of  peasants,  failed  on  the  whole  to 
bring  rehef  to  the  vast  bulk  of  the  peasantry.  Fully 
seventy  per  cent  of  them  continued  to  suffer  from 
land-shortage  and  all  that  the  term  implies. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS 

The  war  greatly  aggravated  the  agrarian  crisis  in 
Russia,  for  reasons  that  are  quite  obvious  to  anyone 
familiar  with  the  economic  life  of  that  country.  In 
the  first  place  the  mobilization  of  about  eighteen 
million  soldiers  drained  seriously  the  supply  of  labor. 
Secondly,  the  war  caused  an  acute  shortage  of  agri- 
cultural implements  and  materials  for  repair.  Har- 
nessed to  war  purposes,  Russia's  industries  greatly 
curtailed  the  manufacture  of  farm  tools,  scanty  even 
under  normal  conditions.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
exceedingly  difficult  to  import  them,  for  Germany 
from  whom  before  the  war  Russia  was  buying  large 
quantities  of  agricultural  machinery — of  plows  alone 
forty-three  per  cent  of  the  entire  supply — was  cut 
off.  As  for  the  other  industrial  nations,  especially  of 
the  Allied  group,  they  were  inconveniently  removed 
from  Russia,  and  with  the  blockade  in  operation  in 
the  Baltic  and  in  the  Dardanelles,  commercial  rela- 
tions with  them  became  exceedingly  difiicult.  Be- 
sides, their  output  of  agricultural  implements  was 
materially  reduced  by  the  war.  Not  having  new 
machinery  the  peasant  continued  to  use  his  old 


204    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

dilapidated  tools,  which  he  could  not  even  repair, 
because  proper  material  was  lacking.  A  third  cause 
contributing  to  the  new  agrarian  crisis  was  the  de- 
crease of  live-stock  in  the  village.  The  best  horses 
were  drafted  into  the  army,  and  cattle  the  mouzhik 
was  tempted  to  sell  because  of  the  inordinately  high 
prices.  Under  these  circumstances  acute  suffering 
was  imminent.  Ti-ue,  the  peasant  possessed  more 
money  than  ever  before,  but  it  was  paper  money — 
metal  coins  had  practically  disappeared  from  ch'cu- 
lation — and  its  value  was  constantly  diminishing 
because  of  the  constantly  rising  prices.  In  reality 
the  peasant  was  growing  poorer — he  was  disposing 
of  a  large  portion  of  his  principal,  and  his  paper 
money  could  not  buy  kerosene,  iron,  leather,  oils, 
sugar.  The  longer  the  war  lasted  the  poorer  he  be- 
came. Add  to  this  the  personal  sorrows  that  visited 
tens  of  thousands  of  families  in  the  country-side  as  a 
result  of  the  war,  and  we  can  easily  understand  how 
thoroughly  prepared  the  peasant  was  for  a  revolution. 
He  welcomed  the  March  upheaval  with  joy.  It 
meant  to  him  the  immediate  possibility  of  real- 
izing his  long-cherished  dream  of  coming  into 
full  possession  of  the  land.  AU  other  problems 
shrank  in  importance  before  the  one  of  expropriating 
the  pomiestchiks.  The  industrial  collapse,  the 
military  disasters,  the  necessity  of  pooling  together 
all  available  resources  and  energies  and  of  forgetting 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  205 

personal  aims  and  ambitions,  if  victory  over  Ger- 
many was  to  be  achieved,  did  not  stir  him.  He 
cared  not  so  much  for  victory  over  Germany  as  for 
the  conquest  of  the  landlords,  for  of  what  good,  he 
reasoned,  was  to  him  the  defeat  of  Germany,  if  the 
landlords  remained  in  power  and  in  possession  of  the 
land?  He  lost  interest  in  the  external  war  and  cen- 
tered his  attention  upon  the  internal  readjustment. 
This  was  evidenced  in  his  refusal  to  release  stored 
grains  for  the  market,  when  nothing  but  paper  money 
was  offered  as  payment,  by  his  refusal  to  pay  taxes, 
by  his  indifference  to  the  liberty  loans  which  the  Pro- 
visional Government  had  floated,  and  still  more 
flagrantly  by  the  spontaneous  widespread  seizure  of 
landlords'  estates,  all  of  which  tended  further  to  dis- 
rupt the  already  shattered  economic  organism  of  the 
coutitry. 

The  Russian  newspapers  for  that  period  printed 
long  and  detailed  accounts  of  these  so-called  agrarian 
disturbances.  Judging  from  these  accounts  there 
was  on  the  whole  comparatively  little  destruction 
of  life  and  property.  The  reason  for  this  was  that 
the  landlords  in  the  absence  of  military  forces  to 
defend  them,  offered  scarcely  any  resistance,  and 
that  the  peasant  was  animated  not  as  much  by  a 
desu'e  to  wreak  vengeance  as  by  a  wish  to  possess 
himself  of  the  land.  That  does  not  mean  that  the 
crusade  against  the  landlords  did  not  involve  attacks 


206    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

upon  life  and  property.  In  many  places  mansions 
were  demolished,  bams  burned,  household  effects, 
from  furniture  to  linen,  paintings,  pianos,  libraries, 
torn,  smashed,  and  set  on  fire.  Considering,  however, 
the  magnitude  and  character  of  the  movement  there 
was,  upon  the  whole,  less  violence  than  might  have 
been  expected. 

How  then  did  the  various  poUtical  parties  who 
were  bidding  for  the  support  of  the  peasant  propose 
to  solve  this  most  burning  of  all  domestic  problems? 
Upon  the  correct  solution  of  this  problem  hinged  not 
merely  the  success  of  these  parties,  but  the  fortunes 
of  the  Revolution.  Without  the  support  of  the  peas- 
ant no  party,  however  rich  its  intellectual  resources 
and  however  abundant  its  active  energies,  could 
possibly  remain  in  power  or  wield  marked  political 
influence,  and  no  task  of  national  magnitude,  how- 
ever laudable  its  aim,  could  possibly  be  executed. 
Though  not  the  initiating  and  immediately  directing 
force  in  Russian  political  hfe,  the  peasant,  neverthe- 
less, is  the  determining  factor.  For  any  political 
party  to  leave  the  peasant  out  of  the  reckoning  or  to 
reckon  with  him  insufficiently,  is  to  invite  disaster. 

The  first  party  that  ascended  to  power  after  the 
Czar  was  overthrown,  were  the  Cadets,  Constitu- 
tional Democrats.  Not  all  the  ministers  in  the  new 
Cabinet  were  Cadets.  Three  were  Octobrists, 
former  supporters  of   the   autocracy   and   avowed 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  207 

monarchists.  One,  Kerensky,  was  a  socialist.  The 
Cadets,  however,  held  seven,  a  majority  of  the 
portfoUos.  Professor  Paul  Milyukov,  the  founder 
of  the  party  and  its  most  brilliant  exi^onent,  became 
Minister  of  Foreign  Aifau's,  which  was  the  most 
delicate  and  important  office.  He  was  the  leading 
spirit  in  the  Cabinet — its  very  constituency  was 
largely  the  result  of  his  labors — so  that  many  writers 
and  public  men  refer  to  it  as  the  Milyukov  Ministry. 

What  was  or  rather  is  the  agrarian  program  of 
the  Cadets?  To  gain  a  clear  and  comprehensive  as 
well  as  sympathetic  conception  of  it,  it  is  necessary 
to  give  a  brief  survey  of  the  origin  of  the  party,  its 
constituency,  its  political  aims,  and  its  past  activi- 
ties. 

The  party  was  founded  in  1905  by  Milyukov. 
Originally  it  was  made  up  of  college  professors, 
publicists,  lawyers,  zej?istvo-woTkers,  liberal  noble- 
men, small  shopkeepers,  business-men  and  all  other 
elements  to  whom  autocracy  was  either  economically 
or  intellectually  intolerable,  and  to  whom  the  radi- 
calism of  the  other  opposition  parties,  all  socialist 
of  various  shades,  was  repugnant.  After  the  March 
Revolution,  when  the  monarchist  parties  had  lost 
the  very  foundation  of  their  existence,  the  Cadets 
absorbed  them,  too. 

The  outstanding  feature  of  the  Cadet  philosophy 
of    government — parliamentarism — is    the   poUtical 


208    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

expression  of  the  economic  interests  and  the  social 
ideology  of  the  elements  that  make  up  the  party.  On 
the  one  hand  are  the  intellectuals — teachers,  publi- 
cists, lawyers,  men  of  an  academic  stamp  of  mind, 
students  of  parhamentary  institutions  and  constitu- 
tional forms  of  government,  and  by  traditions,  habits 
of  thought,  temperament  and  traming,  averse  to 
violent  changes  in  govenunent.  They  are  not  of  the 
masses,  nor  even  in  close  contact  with  them,  but  are 
earnestly  interested  in  their  welfare.  In  a  parha- 
mentary form  of  government,  preferably  a  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  in  the  slow  sohd  development  of  a 
parliamentary  state,  patterned  more  or  less  after  the 
Anglo-Saxon  model,  they  see  a  panacea  for  all  Rus- 
sia's ills.  They  are  sticklers  for  legality  and  regu- 
larity. Though  they  advocate  many  advanced 
social  measures  such  as  an  eight-hour  labor  day, 
social  insurance,  progressive  inlieritance  and  income 
taxes,  and  other  measures  of  a  similar  nature, 
they  insist  that  these  must  be  inaugurated  only  in  a 
legal  manner,  after  a  constitution  has  been  adopted 
and  government  machinery  set  up.  In  other  words, 
they  condition  the  fulfillment  of  their  social  reforms 
upon  the  attainment  of  their  political  goal.  Direct 
action  of  any  nature,  they  deprecate.  On  the  other 
hand,  are  the  commercial  classes  who  chafed  under 
the  restraints  of  the  old  government,  which  ham- 
pered them  seriously  in  their  promotion  of  industry 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  209 

and  commerce.  In  political  liberties,  in  the  slow 
growth  of  a  parliamentary  state,  in  the  gradual 
orderly  transition  from  one  system  of  government 
to  the  other,  they  see  an  opportunity  to  develop 
and  expand  Russian  trade  and  industry  without  the 
serious  interruptions  and  catastrophic  setbacks 
incident  to  a  violent  reversal  of  existing  institutions. 
It  is  quite  natural,  then,  that  the  Cadets  should 
exhibit  a  dread  of  the  Revolution,  with  its  direct 
mass  action.  Ever  since  the  founding  of  their  party, 
the  Cadets  have  striven  to  bring  the  opposition  to 
the  old  government  under  their  control,  to  temper 
its  passion  and  prevent  it  from  hazardous  and  vio- 
lent action.  They  were  ever  ready  to  welcome  the 
smallest  concession  granted  by  the  government — 
rather  than  resort  to  revolutionary  action  to  obtain 
substantial  reforms.  They  cheerfully  accepted  Min- 
ister Bulygin's  project  for  a  consultative  Duma, 
which  was  only  a  sop  to  an  aroused  people.  Their 
argument  was  that  once  the  principle  of  parliamen- 
tarism was  recognized,  even  though  its  embodiment 
was  inadequate,  they  would  be  in  a  position  ulti- 
mately to  transform  the  imperfect  institution  in 
accordance  with  their  own  conceptions.  Only  when 
the  first  Duma  was  dissolved  and  their  hopes  were 
shattered,  did  the  Cadets  exhibit  a  genuine  revolu- 
tionary spirit,  which  was  manifest  in  the  Voborg 
manifesto  calling  upon  the  people  to  refuse  to  pay 


210    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

taxes  and  to  resist  drafting  into  the  army.  But  that 
was  only  an  outburst  of  momentary  rage,  a  flitting 
gesture  of  desperation,  and  not  a  genuine  change  of 
tactical  principles,  for  soon  after  that  they  slumped 
into  a  position  of  acquiescence.  When  the  second 
Duma  was  dismissed  and  the  election  laws  were  so 
manipulated  as  to  permit  a  small  class  of  landlords 
to  control  a  majority  of  the  deputies,  the  Cadets 
bowed  in  submission.  And  though  the  third  Duma 
was  a  mere  hollow  shell  of  a  parhament,  they  strove 
desperately  to  save  it  from  the  fate  of  its  predecessor. 
They  compromised,  capitulated,  swallowed  insults, 
all  in  order  to  save  the  Duma.  Better  an  impotent 
Duma,  than  no  Duma  at  all,  they  argued. 

Their  dread  of  revolution  was  even  more  vividly 
expressed  in  their  attitude  toward  the  March  up- 
heaval. Several  months  before  the  occurrence  of 
that  epochal  event,  when  the  rumble  of  discontent 
was  constantly  gaining  in  volume,  Milyukov  said: 
''If  a  revolution  is  necessarj^  to  bring  about  victory- 
Cover  Germany)  I  do  not  want  victory."  And  later 
just  a  short  time  before  the  coming  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, when  provocateurs  spread  the  rumor  that  Mil- 
yukov was  going  about  the  factories  of  Petrograd 
counselUng  the  workers  to  revolt,  he  issued  a  state- 
ment vogorously  denying  the  rumor  and  then  em- 
phasized the  fact  that  he  had  not  the  least  sympathy 
with  activities  imputed  to  him.    When  the  Revolu- 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  211 

tion  finally  heaved  into  being,  sudden,  spontaneous, 
leaderless,  Milyukov  was  in  despair.  ''In  fifteen 
minutes,"  he  said  watching  the  surging  crowds  in 
the  streets,  ''it  will  be  squashed  in  blood,"  and  had 
he  possessed  the  power  he  would  have  persuaded  the 
frantic  mobs  to  disperse  and  he  would  have  blotted 
out  from  their  minds  the  very  thought  of  Revolu- 
tion. Only  after  the  soldiers  and  cossacks  dis- 
patched to  suppress  the  rebellious  populace  had 
joined  in  the  processions,  and  it  became  evident 
that  the  old  regime  was  a  mere  corpse,  requiring 
merely  to  have  its  remains  removed;  only  when  the 
Revolution  was  an  accomplished  fact  did  Milyukov 
and  his  colleagues  in  the  Duma  change  front  and 
welcome  the  unbidden  and  much  dreaded  visitor. 

The  Duma  being  the  only  more  or  less  popular 
organization  in  existence,  assumed  charge  of  affairs, 
elected  a  provisional  committee  which  in  turn  chose 
the  Cabinet,  virtually  putting  the  Cadets,  then  the 
most  influential  party  in  the  Duma,  at  the  helm  of 
the  new  government.  The  coming  of  the  Cadets 
into  power  was,  therefore,  nothing  more  than  a 
happy  accident — there  was  no  one  else,  no  party,  no 
organization,  no  institution  at  that  time  prepared 
to  dispute  the  authority  of  the  Duma. 

And  when  the  Cadets  came  mto  power  their  dread 
of  the  Revolution  was  undiminished,  and  they 
strove  to  press  its  course  into  the  channel  of  their 


212    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

political  conceptions.  According  to  A.  A.  Bublikov, 
a  prominent  conservative  member  of  the  Duma,  who 
practically  of  his  own  accord  had  seized  control  of 
the  railroads  and  had  thereby  paralyzed  all  activi- 
ties of  the  old  regime,  and  who  was  chairman  of  the 
committee  that  made  the  Czar  a  prisoner,  when 
Milyukov  was  asked  what  would  be  the  program  of 
the  new  ministry  he  rephed,  "Of  course  the  program 
of  the  bloc."  The  bloc  was  a  coalition  of  all  poUtical 
parties  in  the  Duma  excepting  the  extremes  of  either 
end,  who  had  agreed,  says  Bublikov,  "upon  quite 
a  moderate  program  for  the  purpose  of  waging  a 
parUamentary  struggle  against  the  Czar's  ministry." 
In  other  words,  the  weapon  which  the  Cadets  had 
used  against  the  Czar,  they  now  intended  to  make 
the  program  for  Russia  after  the  Czar  was  over- 
thrown. 

Not  only  had  the  Cadets  embraced  a  policy  which 
no  longer  possessed  vitality,  they  stubbornly  fought 
for  the  preservation  of  the  monarchy,  for  the  perpet- 
uation of  the  throne  and  the  office  of  the  Czar.  WTiat 
they  wanted  was  not  a  republic  but  a  constitutional 
monarchy  with  a  parliament  and  a  ministry  respon- 
sible to  it,  modelled  largely  after  the  British  form 
of  government. 

How  the  urban  masses  viewed  the  effort  to  save 
the  dynasty  is  best  illustrated  in  the  following  two 
incidents.     In  his  book  the  "Russian  Revolution," 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  213 

Bublikov  tells  of  an  address  delivered  before  an 
audience  of  railroad  workers  in  Petrograd  by  Guch- 
kov,  Minister  of  War  in  the  first  Provisional  Govern- 
ment, upon  his  return  from  the  trip  he  made  to  ob- 
tain the  act  of  abdication  from  Nicholas  Romanov. 
After  reading  the  act  of  abdication,  Guchkov  ex- 
claimed, ''Long  live  Emperor  Michael  the  second." 
(Michael  was  the  Czar's  brother.)  "The  working- 
men,"  says  Bublikov,  "grew  furious  and  closing  their 
shops  they  announced  their  firm  determination  to  de- 
stroy the  act  and  to  lynch  Guchkov."  With  great 
difficulty  a  railroad  official  succeeded  in  keeping  the 
workers  from  carrying  out  their  resolution.  Milyn- 
kov  had  a  somewhat  similar  experience.  When  he 
appeared  in  the  big  Duma  hall  to  announce  the  for- 
mation of  the  new  Cabinet,  he  stated  that  Grand 
Duke  Michael  would  become  the  regent  and  the  for- 
mer Czar's  son  Alexey  the  heir  to  the  throne.  A 
storm  of  protest  broke  loose.  On  all  sides  were 
heard  shouts,  "Down  with  the  Romanovs!  Down 
with  the  Grand  Dukes!  Down  with  the  dynasty! 
We  want  no  monarchs!  Long  live  the  republic!" 
The  soldiers  were  especially  hostile,  "  What  does  it 
mean?"  they  argued,  "we  have  fought  and  fought 
and  fought  and  he  wants  to  thrust  a  monarch  upon 
our  necks!"  They  pelted  Milyukov  with  sharp 
questions,  their  indignation  and  anger  growing  more 
intense.     At   last   to   pacify   them   Milyukov   felt 


214    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

obliged  to  explain  that  he  was  merely  expressing  his 
own  personal  opinion,  which  was  not  at  all  binding 
upon  the  country. 

Whatever,  therefore,  one  may  think  of  the  Cadet 
poHtical  program,  the  indisputable  fact  is,  that 
there  is  almost  an  unbridgeable  chasm  between  the 
Cadets  and  the  masses.  The  Cadets  are  scholars, 
saturated  with  western  poHtical  thought  and  tradi- 
tion, advocates  of  western  especially  Anglo-Saxon 
political  institutions,  averse  to  revolutionaiy  tactics 
under  all  circumstances,  bent  upon  subjecting  the 
evolution  of  Russia  to  their  formulas,  whereas  the 
masses  do  not  even  understand  the  language  of  the 
Cadets,  have  as  yet  cultivated  no  regard  for  con- 
stitutional formalities,  are  impelled  in  their  thoughts 
and  actions  by  their  immediate  wants,  and  are  ready 
to  resort  to  any  method  available,  however  desper- 
ate, to  attain  their  goal.  No  wonder  that  E.  J. 
Dillon,  a  conservative  writer,  with  utter  contempt 
for  Russian  radicalism,  is  constrained  to  say:  ''The 
Cadets  who  deserved  their  reputation  of  being  the 
best  organized  party  in  the  Empire,  had  not  firm 
hold  on  the  nation,  because  they  were  not  of  it, 
they  could  not  place  themselves  at  its  angle  of 
vision,  were  incapable  of  appreciating  its  world- 
philosophy,  were  not  rooted  in  the  people.  Hence 
they  did  not  enlist  the  peasant  and  the  workingman 
in  their  party  and  stood  only  for  themselves." 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  215 

From  all  that  has  been  said  above  it  would  be 
logical  to  infer  that  the  agrarian  program  of  the 
Cadets  would  not  correspond  with  the  wishes  of  the 
peasant.  Let  us  examine  it.  It  can  be  divided  into 
two  parts,  one  dealing  with  temporary  measures  to  be 
adopted  before  the  summoning  of  the  Constituent 
Convention,  the  other  presenting  a  final  solution  of 
the  land  problem  to  be  adopted  by  the  National 
Convention  that  was  to  settle  all  the  fundamental 
problems  of  the  nation. 

As  regards  the  temporary  measures  they  were 
intended  chiefly  to  preserve  peace  in  the  village,  to 
prevent  seizm^es  of  land,  confiscation  of  five-stock, 
grains,  machinery  and  other  property.  The  land- 
lords were  to  remain  in  possession  of  their  land,  the 
peasant  of  his.  Land  committees,  local  and  national, 
were  to  arbitrate  any  differences  that  might  arise 
between  landlord  and  peasant  as  regards  rentals, 
wages  of  labor  and  other  matters  of  conflict,  and  were 
in  general  to  help  the  peasant  "pull  through"  until 
the  convocation  of  the  Constituent.  The  right  of 
private  property  was  to  remain  inviolate,  and  land- 
lords might  sell  and  mortgage  their  land  or  do  with 
it  anything  else  they  pleased. 

It  was  wise,  indeed,  on  the  part  of  the  Cadets  to 
seek  to  prevent  anarchy  in  the  village.  But  the  most 
tactful  and  determined  land-committees  in  the  world 
could  not  possibly  have  averted  it  as  long  as  the 


216    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

landlords  continued  to  enjoy  the  right  of  sale  or 
mortgage.  The  poor  peasant  especially  would  have 
rebelled  against  this  right  for  he  could  not  watch 
with  composure  any  transfer  of  land  to  any  city 
folks,  rich  peasants  or  foreign  syndicates.  He 
would  have  regarded  such  acts  as  an  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  landlords  to  deprive  him  of  what  he 
thought  was  his  by  all  the  moral  rights  of  possession. 
Furthermore,  new  sales  and  mortgages  would  have 
created"  new  claims,  new  disputes,  for  the  Constit- 
uent to  settle.  In  case  of  foreign  investors,  there 
surely  would  have  been  many  of  them,  for  the  land- 
lords, in  fear  of  unfavorable  action  in  the  Constit- 
uent, would  have  hastened  to  bargain  off  their 
estates  to  any  possessors  of  ready  cash,  many  of 
whom  in  Russia  were  foreigners  or  had  foreign 
financial  connections;  the  Constituent  might  be 
face  to  face  with  a  deUcate  international  problem  in 
trying  to  dispose  of  what  was  legally  property  of 
foreigners.  Immediate  prohibition  of  all  forms  of 
sale  and  mortgage  in  land  was  imperative.  But  the 
Cadets  would  have  none  of  it.  ^Vhen  the  peasant 
Congress  passed  a  resolution  urging  such  prohibition, 
the  Cadets  denounced  it,  and  when  the  Social- 
Revolutionary  Chernov  succeeded  the  Cadet  Shin- 
garev  as  Minister,  of  Agriculture  after  the  fall  of  the 
first  Provisional  Government,  they  used  all  their 
influence  to  prevent  him  from  issuing  such  a  regula- 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  217 

tion.  When  he  finally  defied  them  and  issued  a 
decree  prohibiting  transaction  in  purchase  of  land, 
they  were  so  inflamed  that  they  charged  him  with 
being  a  traitor,  a  German  agent,  and  turned  upon 
his  person  a  stream  of  abuse.  Not  even  after  a  court 
of  honor  had  exonerated  Chernov  of  their  accusa- 
tions, did  they  abandon  their  assaults  upon  his 
character. 

Thus  the  temporary  agrarian  measures  proposed 
by  the  Cadets  were  not  only  inadequate  but  sub- 
versive of  the  very  ends  they  were  intended  to 
achieve.  But  it  is  in  their  final  solution  of  the 
agrarian  program  that  we  most  clearly  discern  the 
remarkable  divergence  between  Cadet  theory  and 
peasant  reahty. 

The  Cadets,  like  all  other  poHtical  parties  excepting 
the  Bolshevists,  insisted  that  the  final  disposition 
of  the  land  question  should  be  left  to  the  authority 
of  the  Constituent.  They  were,  however,  in  no  hurry 
to  summon  the  assembly.  In  their  incurable  dread 
of  the  Revolution  they  strove  desperately  to  post- 
pone it  in  the  hope  that  the  flush  of  revolutionary 
fervor  would  subside  and  then  they  would  have  a 
better  chance  of  dominating  the  assembly.  They 
knew  that  if  the  Constituent  were  summoned  soon, 
the  peasant  representing  the  vast  majority  of  the 
population  would  swamp  it  with  his  delegates  and 
while  in  the  heat  of  revolutionary  passion  would 


218    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

carry  through  his  own  program,  which  was  not  at  all 
after  their  heart.  Therefore,  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution  they  advocated  the  postponement  of  the 
Constituent  until  after  the  war,  which  they  were 
determined  to  fight  through  to  victory.  They  soon 
discovered,  however,  that  the  people  were  in  no 
mood  to  tolerate  such  a  poUcy  and  they  abandoned 
it,  contenting  themselves  with  a  vigorous  opposi- 
tion to  the  inmiediate  summoning  of  the  national 
assembly.  Diu-ing  March  and  April,  1917,  while 
they  held  the  reigns  of  government,  they  scarcely 
made  a  move  to  prepare  the  nation  for  the  much 
longed-for  convention.  They  merely  promised  to 
summon  it,  but  appointed  neither  time  nor  place 
and  nominated  no  commission  to  prepare  the  ma- 
chinery for  the  elections.  After  the  fall  of  the  Mil- 
yukov  ministry,  when  the  cry  calhng  for  the  Constit- 
uent mounted  dangerously  higher  and  higher  from 
day  to  day,  an  announcement  was  finally  made  that 
it  would  be  convened  on  the  30th  of  September, 
1917.  That,  however,  did  not  suit  the  taste  of  the 
Cadets,  though  their  representatives  in  the  Cabinet 
had  approved  of  the  announcement.  They  urged  a 
further  postponement,  claiming  that  the  people 
could  not  be  properly  prepared  for  elections  within 
the  allotted  space  of  time.  The  Kerensky  adminis- 
tration finally  yielded  to  pressure,  and  the  elections 
were  postponed  until  the  30th  of  November. 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  219 

All  of  this  could  not  but  displease  the  peasant.  He 
was  concerned  solely  with  the  speedy  solution  of  the 
land  problem,  and  any  measure  that  was  calculated 
to  retard  his  coming  into  possession  of  the  land, 
could  not  but  rouse  his  suspicion  and  impatience  and 
goad  him  into  acts  of  violence.  The  Cadet  tactics, 
therefore,  instead  of  abating,  only  heightened  the 
revolutionary  passion  of  the  mouzhik,  which  circum- 
stance demonstrates  anew  how  woefully  the  Cadets 
misjudged  the  working  of  the  peasant's  mind. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  mode  of  the  Cadets'  final 
solution  of  the  land  problem,  that  we  perceive  the 
most  marked  difference  between  their  program  and 
the  peasant's  aspirations.  The  main  features  of  this 
solution  are  embodied  in  their  program  adopted  in 
April,  1917,  in  the  article  entitled  the  ''Agrarian 
Law."  The  article  opens  with  a  statement  to  the 
effect  that  the  party  is  aware  of  the  gravity  of  the  eco- 
nomic crisis  in  the  village,  and  favors  the  enlarge- 
ment of  the  peasant  landholdings,  'Ho  be  effected 
through  the  confiscation  of  state,  appanage,  cabinet 
and  monastery  lands  and  also  through  the  compul- 
sory ahenation  of  privately  owned  lands  to  the  extent 
that  may  be  found  necessary."  Such  lands  shall  be 
turned  into  a  state  land-fund  out  of  which  the  peas- 
ant shall  be  allotted  a  new  share,  through  the  instru- 
mentahty  of  the  Government  land  commissions.  The 
amount  of  land  each  peasant  shall  receive  shall  be 


220    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

equal  to  his  alimentary  norm,  which  is  defined  as 
"such  an  area  of  land  which,  under  the  given  circum- 
stances, and  taking  into  consideration  the  income 
derived  from  other  sources,  wherever  such  exist, 
shall  be  sufficient  to  cover  the  average  requirements 
for  food,  house,  clothing  and  the  payment  of  taxes." 
The  land  shall  not  become  the  private  property  of 
the  recipient,  but  shall  be  held  by  him  only  as  long  as 
he  shall  work  it.  The  manner  of  holding,  whether 
individual  or  communal,  shall  be  left  to  the  choice  of 
each  locality.  The  landlords  shall  be  compensated 
for  the  land.  The  amount  of  compensation  shall  be 
based  upon  the  normal,  that  is,  average  income  de- 
rived in  the  given  locality,  not  from  rentals  but  from 
personal  operation  of  the  estate.  This  income  shall 
serve  as  a  basis  of  capitalization.  If,  for  example, 
the  income  from  a  dessyatin  is  ten  roubles  and  the 
current  rate  of  interest  is  five  per  cent,  the  dessyatin 
is  valued  at  two  hundred  roubles.  Payments  shall 
be  made  in  interest-bearing  securities  issued  by  the 
Government  out  of  the  taxes  collected  from  all  citi- 
zens. These  are  the  main  features  of  the  Cadet 
program.  How  do  they  tally  with  the  actual  and 
potential  aspirations  of  the  peasant? 

To  begin  with,  the  Cadets  do  not  propose  to  alien- 
ate all  the  land  of  the  pomieshtchiks,  whereas  the 
peasant  does,  with  the  possible  exception  of  such 
areas  as  the  owners  may  want  to  till,  not  with  hired, 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  221 

but  with  their  own  hands.  Of  course,  if  there  were 
an  unUmited  amoimt  of  arable  land  in  Russia,  if 
there  were  enough  to  carve  out  generous  allot- 
ments to  the  peasant  without  the  need  of  breaking 
up  all  the  big  estates,  the  Cadets  might,  through 
compromise  and  concession  in  other  respects,  suc- 
ceed in  carrying  out  this  particular  feature  of  their 
program.  But  the  available  land  in  Russia  is 
scarcely  sufficient  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  many 
milUons  of  peasants,  and  it  is  hard  to  conceive  how 
any  one  of  them  should  he  be  possessed  even  of  a 
more  or  less  substantial  allotment,  will  acquiesce  in 
his  neighboring  landlord's  holding  a  big  estate.  His 
appetite  for  land  will  not  be  satisfied  as  long  as  there 
shall  be  such  estates  and,  therefore,  an  opportunity 
to  add  another  strip  to  his  farm. 

Secondly,  the  ahmentary  norm  the  Cadets  propose 
as  a  basis  for  each  individual  allotment  will  not 
satisfy  the  peasant  for  any  length  of  time,  even 
should  he  at  first  agree  to  that  arrangement,  which 
in  the  majority  of  cases  he  will  not.  The  very  notion 
that  he  is  entitled  to  no  more  than  the  barest  neces- 
sities of  hving  will  in  course  of  time  prove  repugnant 
to  him.  Besides,  the  Cadets  do  not  propose  that  the 
peasant  shall  himself  determine  what  this  ahmen- 
tary norm  shall  be.  The  government  shall  do  that 
— ^presumably  a  government  that  would  favor  the 
Cadet  program  and  would,  therefore,  be  interested  in 


222    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

reducing  to  a  minimum  the  amount  of  expropriated 
land,  ultimately  therefore  the  alimentary  norm 
of  the  peasant,  which  practically  means  his  standard 
of  living.  Further,  no  such  alimentary  norm  is  pro- 
posed for  the  landlords.  They  shall  be  at  liberty 
to  maintain  whatever  standard  of  living  they  choose. 
This  surely  would  be  clearly  a  case  of  class  legislation 
in  favor  of  the  landlords,  and  would  offer  to  the 
radical  elements  a  mighty  weapon  with  which  to 
rouse  the  hostility  of  the  mouzhik. 

Granted,  however,  that  the  peasant  at  first  accepts 
the  alimentaiy  norm  and  the  minimum  expropria- 
tion of  estates,  he  will  be  content  with  such  a  reform 
only  as  long  as  the  attainment  of  the  barest  neces- 
sities of  Ufe  constitutes  his  sole  immediate  goal. 
Once  he  has  reached  this  goal,  he  will  strive  for  other 
things.  Sheer  instinct  and  also  that  education  which 
even  the  Cadets  promise  to  him,  will  lead  to  an  in- 
crease of  his  wants.  He  will  want  a  daily  newspaper, 
which  very  few  peasants  can  now  afford,  magazines, 
books,  better  clothes,  better  furniture,  better  wagons 
and  buggies;  he  will  want  to  build  larger,  more  attrac- 
tive homes;  he  will  want  to  go  to  towTi  to  the 
"movies"  or  to  some  other  entertainment;  being 
exceedingly  musical,  he  will  want  musical  instru- 
ments and  other  things,  which  may  seem  luxuries  at 
first,  but  which  with  the  development  of  his  individ- 
uality will  become  necessities,  just  as  the  telephone 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  223 

and  automobile  have  become  with  the  American 
farmer.  But  being  chained  to  a  fixed  alimentary 
norm,  he  will  be  prevented  from  raising  his  standard 
of  living. 

Further,  to  the  peasant  the  Cadets'  proposal  to 
compensate  the  landlords  for  whatever  land  should 
be  aUenated  from  them,  is  even  more  objectionable 
than  their  scheme  for  the  distribution  of  land.  Of 
course  the  Cadets  do  not  propose  to  have  the  peasant 
remunerate  the  landlords.  The  government  shall  do 
that  out  of  the  general  tax  collected  from  all  citizens. 
Now  the  vast  majority,  about  80  per  cent  of  the 
citizens  in  Russia,  are  peasants,  consequently  by  and 
large  most  of  the  compensation  for  the  landlords  will 
come  out  of  the  mouzhik's  coffers.  True,  the  Cadets 
propose  an  income  and  inheritance  tax,  which  should 
it  be  heavy  enough,  might  throw  the  burden  of  tax- 
ation upon  the  richer  classes.  But  representing  the 
interests  of  these  classes  as  they  do,  the  Cadets  are 
not  likely  to  favor  such  a  measure,  especially  when 
one  takes  into  consideration  the  fact  that  the  Cadets 
regard  Russian  capital  as  a  precious  infant  needing 
all  the  possible  care  to  enable  it  to  grow  strong  and 
convert  Russia  into  a  powerful  industrial  nation.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  the  burden  of  remunerating 
the  landlords  will  fall  upon  the  mouzhik. 

Now  that  would  not  be  so  bad  if  the  amount  of 
compensation  were  moderate.    From  the  peasant's 


224    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

point  of  view  it  is  exorbitant.  The  Cadets  propose 
to  insure  to  the  landlords  an  income  equal  to  the 
average  they  derived  not  from  rentals  but  from 
"sobstvennoy  otrahotki,''  that  is,  from  personal  oper- 
ation of  the  farm.  The  distinction  between  rentals 
and  income  from  personal  operation  is  more  or  less 
illusor}'.  It  stands  to  reason  that  while  in  certain 
locahties  there  may  be  quite  a  substantial  discrepancy 
between  the  two,  on  the  whole  the  one  tends  to  at- 
tain the  level  of  the  other,  for  if  a  landlord  can 
derive  a  larger  income  by  renting  land,  than  he  can 
by  managing  his  own  tillage  of  crops,  he  will,  of 
course,  do  so,  especially  when  one  takes  into  consid- 
eration the  fact  that  the  demand  for  rent-land  was 
much  greater  than  the  supply.  If,  therefore,  the 
Cadets  propose  to  guarantee  to  the  landlords  an 
income  that  shall  be  equal  to  the  average  they  derived 
from  personal  management  of  their  estates,  they 
really  guarantee  to  them  the  income  derived  from 
renting  their  land,  and  rentals,  as  has  already  been 
pointed  out,  were  exorbitant,  and  were  one  of  the 
chief  causes  of  the  impoverishment  of  the  mouzhik. 
Now  the  biggest  part  of  compensation  the  landlords 
are  to  receive,  will  come  from  the  peasant.  This  has 
been  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  paragraph.  In 
other  words,  the  Cadets  through  their  scheme  of 
land-indemnity  to  be  paid  to  the  pomieshtchiks  would 
actually  compel  the  peasant  to  continue  to  pay  big 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  225 

rentals  for  whatever  additional  land  he  may  acquire. 
The  only  differences  between  the  system  that  pre- 
vailed under  the  Czar  and  the  one  the  Cadets  propose 
to  inaugurate,  is  that  the  amount  of  rent  under  the 
latter  would  be  somewhat  reduced,  and  that  instead 
of  paying  directly  to  the  landlords,  the  peasant  would 
have  to  pay  it  to  them  indirectly  in  the  form  of  a 
state  tax.  Under  these  circumstances  with  the  best 
of  intentions  the  Cadets  cannot  hope  materially  to 
improve  the  condition  of  the  mouzhik.  He  will  not 
have  the  means  to  purchase  better  tools,  better  seed, 
fertilizer  and  the  other  things  necessary  to  raise  the 
productivity  of  his  soil.  Of  course  the  Cadets  prom- 
ise to  extend  liberal  aid  to  him  so  as  to  enable  him 
to  improve  his  technical  equipment.  But  where  will 
they  obtain  the  means  for  such  aid?  They  will  float 
loans,  indorse  liabiUties.  And  then  what?  They 
will  have  to  pay  their  debts  in  the  future  and  only 
through  taxation,  the  bulk  of  which  will  come  out 
of  the  peasant's  pocket. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  peasant  is  thoroughly  and 
vigorously  opposed  to  any  form  of  land  indemnities. 
He  does  not  regard  the  pomieshtchiks  as  owners  but 
as  usurpers.  He  has  no  respect  whatever  for  their 
claim  to  their  inviolate  rights  to  the  land.  In  all  of 
the  peasant's  utterances  on  the  subject,  whether  in 
the  form  of  written  resolutions  or  speeches,  the  point 
with  regard  to  compensation  has  been  made  emphati- 


226    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

cally  clear.  The  peasant  simply  refuses  to  sanction 
any  form  of  remuneration  to  the  landlords.  Perhaps 
the  finest  and  most  conclusive  evidence  on  the  matter 
is  embodied  in  the  numerous  speeches  of  the  peasant 
deputies  in  the  second  Duma,  when  the  question  of 
compensation  was  under  discussion.  These  deputies, 
it  must  be  remembered,  acted  under  detailed  in- 
structions from  their  constituents,  so  that  their 
utterances  reveal  not  only  their  personal  attitude, 
but  also  that  of  the  peasant  masses.  I  shall  quote 
portions  of  several  speeches  of  peasant  deputies 
relating  to  the  subject  of  land-indemnities.  The 
simphcity,  crudeness  and  occasional  confusion  in 
expression  only  lend  emphasis  to  the  ideas  presented. 

Peasant  deputy  Nyetchailo  said: 

''We  are  told  to  buy  this  land,  which  belongs  to 
the  people.  Buy  it?  Are  we  newly  arrived  foreigners 
from  England,  France  or  some  other  country?  Why 
then  should  we  have  to  buy  our  own  lands?  We  have 
paid  for  them  a  ten-fold  price  with  our  labor,  our 
sweat,  our  blood  and  our  money." 

Peasant  deputy  Ku-sonov  from  Saratov,  one  of  the 
poorest  provinces,  said: 

"We  are  talking  of  land  these  days  as  of  nothing 
else.  We  are  told  it  is  a  sacred  inviolate  possession. 
I  think  if  the  people  want  it,  there  can  be  no  invio- 
lateness  about  it.  Gentlemen  of  the  nobility!  You 
think  we  have  forgotten  the  time  when  you  used  us 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  227 

as  stakes  in  playing  at  cards  and  exchanged  us  for 
dogs!  We  know  we  were  your  sacred  inviolate 
property.  But  the  land  has  been  stolen  from  us.  The 
peasants  who  have  sent  me  here  have  said:  that  the 
land  is  ours!  We  have  come  here  not  to  buy,  but  to 
take  it." 

Deputy  Fomitchev  said : 

''We,  the  representatives  of  the  peasants,  cannot 
accede  to  the  demand  for  compensation,  because 
compensation  would  only  be  a  noose  round  our 
necks." 

Peasant  deputy  AfTanasyev,  representing  one  mil- 
lion peasants  from  the  Don  region,  said : 

"Work,  sweat  and  make  use  of  the  land.  But  if 
you  want  to  hve  on  the  land,  if  you  do  not  want  to 
work  it,  if  you  do  not  want  to  apply  your  labor  to  it, 
you  have  no  right  to  draw  any  benefit  from  it." 

Deputy  Semyonov  said: 

"For  two  hundred  years  we  have  been  waiting  for 
the  treasure  to  fall  from  heaven.  But  in  vain.  The 
land  has  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  big  landlords, 
who  have  acquired  it  through  the  sacrifices  of  our 
fathers  and  gi'andfathers.  But  the  land  is  not  theirs, 
it  is  God's.  I  understand  perfectly  well,  that  the 
land  belongs  to  the  toiling  people,  to  those  who  sweat 
over  it.  Deputy  Purishkevitch  (a  rabid  reactionary) 
says  '  Help !  Revolution ! '  What  does  it  mean?  Yes, 
if  the  land  is  taken  from  them,  they  and  not  we  will 


228    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

make  a  revolution.  We  shall  continue  to  fight  for 
our  rights,  but  we  shall  be  a  peaceful  people.  Have 
we  150  dessyatins  each  like  the  priest?  And  what  of 
the  land  of  the  monasteries  and  churches?  What  do 
they  need  it  for?  No,  gentlemen,  it  is  time  to  stop 
hoarding  fortunes  and  hidmg  them  in  your  pockets. 
It  is  time  we  also  actually  began  to  live.  The 
country  will  understand  everything,  gentlemen.  I 
understand  everj^thing  perfectly  well.  We  are  hon- 
est citizens.  We  do  not  occupy  ourselves  with 
politics,  as  one  of  the  preceding  orators  has  said. 
They  (the  landlords),  fattened  on  our  blood  and  our 
lives,  loaf  around.  We  shall  remember  this,  but  we 
shall  not  offend  them,  we  shall  even  give  them  land. 
If  we  figure  16  dessyatins  for  each  household  in  our 
section,  there  will  still  remain  fifty  dessyatins  for 
every  one  of  them.  Thousands,  millions  of  our 
people  are  starving,  and  they  are  feasting,  and  when 
we  are  in  the  army  and  fall  ill,  we  are  told  'he  has 
land  in  his  native  place.'  But  where  is  this  place, 
this  native  country!'  We  have  none,  or  only  such 
where  it  is  recorded  on  paper  where  we  were  born, 
and  what  our  religion  is.  But  we  have  no  land.  Yes, 
I  want  to  tell  you,  that  our  people  have  instructed 
me  to  have  all  the  church  monastery,  state  appanage, 
and  pomieshtchiks'  lands  transferred  to  those  who 
will  work  them.  I  want  to  tell  you  that  my  people 
have  sent  me  here  to  demand  land  and  freedom  and 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  229 

civil  liberties,  and  we  shall  go  on  with  our  work,  and 
shall  not  point  out  landlords  here  and  peasants  there. 
We  shall  all  be  equal,  each  a  lord  in  his  own  place." 

Deputy  Morozov  said:  ^ 

"We  must  take  the  land  away  from  the  priests  and 
pomieshtchiks.  They  (the  priests)  speak  of  the  Holy 
Gospel  and  read  to  us  the  words  'Ask  and  it  shall 
be  given  imto  you,  knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto 
you.'  We  have  been  asking,  asking,  but  they  have 
not  given  unto  us;  we  have  been  knocking,  knocking 
and  they  have  not  opened  unto  us.  Shall  it  become 
necessary  for  us  to  break  the  door  and  take  things 
by  force?  Gentlemen,  do  not  allow  the  doors  to  be 
broken.  Give  voluntarily.  Then  we  shall  have 
freedom  and  liberty,  and  you  shall  live  well,  and  we 
shall  live  well." 

Deputy  Sakhnov  from  the  province  of  Kiev  said: 

"At  present  the  peasants  are  very  poor,  because 
they  have  no  land.  The  peasant  suffers  at  the  hands 
of  the  pomieshtchiks,  who  oppress  him  terribly. 
Why  is  it  the  pomieshtchiks  can  have  so  much  land 
and  the  peasant  only  the  one  kingdom  in  heaven? 
Gentlemen,  when  the  peasants  sent  me  here,  they 
instructed  me  to  defend  their  interests  and  to  demand 
that  all  the  lands  of  the  church,  monasteries,  appan- 
ages, pomieshtchiks  shall  be  taken  without  compen- 
sation. Know,  gentlemen  representatives  of  the 
people,  a  hungry  man  cannot  sit  still,  when  he  ob- 


230    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

serves  that  despite  his  woe,  the  government  is  on  the 
side  of  the  landlords.  He  cannot  help  wanting  land, 
even  if  it  is  against  the  law;  necessity  compels  him 
to  want  it.  A  hungiy  man  is  ready  for  everything, 
because  need  compels  him  to  disregard  all  considera- 
tions, for  he  is  hungry  and  poor." 

One  could  quote  numerous  pages  of  speeches 
embodying  similar  thoughts  and  sentiments.  De- 
spite the  incoherence,  commonplaceness,  question- 
able granmiar  of  these  utterances,  they  voice  the 
conceptions  and  desires  of  the  peasant  more  pro- 
foundly and  more  vigorously  than  the  multitude  of 
carefully  prepared  theses  with  their  cautious  phrasing 
and  finely  spun  logic,  that  have  been  written  by 
various  students  of  the  peasant  problem.  From  these 
speeches  it  is  only  too  obvious  how  the  peasant 
regards  compensation. 

But  the  Cadets  aver  that  confiscation  of  land 
without  compensation  will  precipitate  an  economic 
crisis.  In  the  words  of  Izgoyev,  one  of  their  most 
brilliant  writers,  "the  land  is  burdened  with  heavy 
debts;  large  industrial  enteiprises  are  financially 
connected  with  it.  If  it  should  come  about  that  the 
debts  on  the  land  in  Russia  are  not  paid,  our  entire 
financial  structure  will  be  upset.  Our  credit  will 
collapse,  and  since  foreigners  are  greatly  interested 
in  our  industrial  and  banking  institutions  and  in  our 
national  loans,  having  invested  huge  sums  of  money 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  231 

in  them,  we  shall  run  the  risk  of  having  foreigners 
estabhsh  control  over  our  finances  as  has  already 
been  done  with  Greece,  Turkey,  Persia,  China." 
There  is  more  panic  than  logic  in  the  warning  of  Iz- 
goyev.  Perhaps  he  would  have  been  justified  in  con- 
juring the  specter  of  a  national  financial  crash  and  the 
possibility  of  foreign  control,  if  the  indebtedness  on 
the  land  of  the  pomieshtchiks  that  would  be  subject 
to  alienation  were  equal  to  its  market  value,  which 
it  is  not.  According  to  Z.  S.  Kazenelenbaum  of 
Moscow  University,  a  student  of  pronounced  Cadet 
sympathies,  there  are  in  all  about  fifty  million  dessya- 
tins  of  arable  land  in  possession  of  landlords.  While 
the  maximum  value  of  this  land  is  between  5.9  and  5 
billions  of  roubles,  the  indebtedness  upon  it  is  but 
2.5  billions,  that  is  about  one-half  of  the  minimum 
value.  The  government  could,  therefore,  confiscate 
aU  the  lands  of  the  pomieshtchiks^  make  good  all 
the  liabilities  against  it,  both  foreign  and  domestic, 
and  thereby  avert  the  possibility  of  an  internal 
financial  collapse  and  the  possibility  of  foreign  inter- 
vention, which  the  Cadets  dread,  and  still  save  to  the 
taxpayers  a  debt  of  2.5  billion  roubles,  the  annual 
interest  on  which  alone  would  amount  to  150  milHon 
roubles  or  about  half  of  what  that  interest  was  for  the 
entire  national  debt  in  1907.  The  Cadets  know  as 
well  as  any  one  that  no  government — excepting 
an  ultra-revolutionary — would  deliberately  plunge 


232    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

the  nation  into  a  serious  financial  crisis,  and  that 
those  parties  who  oppose  compensation  would  as  a 
matter  of  sheer  self-protection  make  some  arrange- 
ments whereby  the  heavy  mortgages  on  the  pomiesh- 
tchiks'  lands  could  be  hfted.  But  Ufting  these  mort- 
gages is  one  thing,  supporting  handsomely  thousands 
of  landlords  by  allowing  them  a  yearly  stipend  equal 
to  their  average  income  from  their  land  is  quite 
another. 

Thus  the  Cadet  agrarian  program  does  not  fit  in 
with  the  desires  and  aspirations  of  the  mouzhik. 
Inveterate  compromisers  that  they  are,  the  Cadets 
attempt  to  reconcile  the  peasant  and  landlord,  which 
simply  cannot  be  done,  for  the  interests  of  the  one  are 
in  every  respect  diametrically  opposed  to  those  of 
the  other.  No  wonder  that  when  the  workers  and 
soldiers  of  Petrograd  demanded  the  resignation  of 
Milyukov,  because  of  his  adherence  to  the  foreign 
pohcies  of  the  Czarist  regime,  as  expressed  in  his  note 
to  the  AUies  pledging  Russia  to  abide  by  all  the 
agreements  with  them,  secret  and  open,  the  Cadets 
found  no  support  whatever  in  rural  Russia,  and 
Milyukov  had  to  resign.  No  wonder  also  in  the 
elections  to  the  Constituent  held  in  November,  1917, 
the  Cadets  elected  no  more  than  8  deputies  out  of  a 
total  of  800! 

No  one  would,  of  course,  accuse  the  leaders  of  the 
Cadet  party  of  indifference  to  the  lot  of  the  peasant. 


THE  CADETS  AND  THE  PEASANTS  233 

On  the  contrary,  men  like  Milyukov,  Hessen, 
Roditchev,  Struve,  Petrunkevitch,  are  big  of  heart, 
and  are  only  too  eager  to  help  the  mouzhik  rise  out 
of  his  poverty.  Were  it  merelj^  a  question  of  personal 
sacrifice  these  men  would  gladly  offer  their  all  to 
elevate  the  peasant  to  a  prosperous  condition.  But 
they  do  not  approach  the  Russian  peasant  in  terms  of 
his  own  immediate  needs  and  wishes.  Steeped  in 
western  ideas  of  government,  they  measure  Russia 
only  with  the  western  political  yardstick,  which  the 
peasant  does  not  and  has  not  the  desire  to  under- 
stand. 

The  Cadets,  however,  have  as  yet  been  unable  to 
grasp  the  fundamental  error  of  their  agrarian  pro- 
gram. Defeat  and  disaster  and  isolation  have  taught 
them  little.  They  still  profess  faith  in  their  solution 
of  the  agrarian  crisis,  despite  the  fact  that  the  peasant 
has  overwhelmingly  rejected  it  in  resolution,  speech 
and  at  the  polls.  In  an  article  in  the  ''New  Europe" 
of  February  13,  1919,  Milyukov  reiterates  that  only 
the  Cadet  program  can  satisfactorily  settle  the  land 
question.    He  writes  as  follows: 

"Others  ask  in  the  same  manner  whether  it  would 
not  be  well  in  order  to  introduce  social  peace  in 
Russia  to  start  with  a  radical  agrarian  program.  My 
answer  is  always  the  same.  Before  political  elections 
can  take  place  or  agrarian  reforms  carried  through, 
we  must  first  emerge  from  the  present  state  of  chaos, 


234    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

introduce  some  degree  of  order  and  at  least  safe- 
guard the  life  and  property  of  the  citizens." 

It  would  be  really  interesting  to  know  how  Mil- 
yukov  proposes  to  establish  the  order  he  advocates 
as  a  prerequisite  for  internal  reconstruction.  Is  it 
through  propaganda  and  exhortation?  He  and  his 
colleagues  have  agitated  brilUantly,  have  exhorted 
passionately,  yet  have  failed  disastrously.  Is  it 
through  force?  There  can  be  no  other  alternative. 
Force  was  what  Stolypin  resorted  to  in  the  Revolu- 
tion which  followed  the  Russo-Japanese  War.  Is  it 
possible  that  Milyukov,  who  is  by  temperament 
averse  to  violence  and  bloodshed,  would  sanction 
a  campaign  of  pacification  a  la  Stolypin?  Has  he 
forgotten  his  own  scorching  denunciations  of  the 
unspeakable  minion  of  Czardom? 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  SOCIAL-REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE 
PEASANT 

With  the  fall  of  the  Milyukov  Ministry  and  the 
coming  of  the  coalition  government  the  task  of 
solving  the  land  problem  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  mod- 
erate elements  in  the  Socialist  parties,  particularly 
to  the  Social-Revolutionaries.  Victor  Chernov, 
leader  of  the  last-named  party,  became  Minister  of 
Agriculture,  and  Kerensky,  with  whose  name  the 
new  Provisional  Government  was  identified,  was  also 
a  leader  in  the  Social-Revolutionary  party.  It  must 
be  remembered,  of  course,  that  the  new  administra- 
tors of  the  department  of  Agriculture,  were  not 
always  in  a  position  to  exercise  their  own  judgments 
and  to  enforce  their  own  principles.  They  were 
seriously  hampered  in  the  Cabinet  by  the  opposition 
of  the  more  conservative  ministers.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  agrarian  pohcies  of  the  new  Provisional 
Government  reflected  the  attitude  of  the  moderate 
and  chiefly  moderate  Social-Revolutionary  parties 
toward  the  peasant. 

More  than  any  other  pohtical  party  the  Social- 
Revolutionaries  have  the  distinction  of  being  of 


«36    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

native  growth.  The  Cadets,  we  have  ah*eady 
learned,  have  borrowed  exhaustively  from  current 
western  conceptions  and  practices  of  political  institu- 
tions. The  Social-Democrats,  whether  Menshevist 
or  Bolshevist,  proudly  profess  their  inviolate  adhe- 
rence to  Marxian  socialism.  Only  the  Social-Rev- 
olutionaries have  evolved  a  philosophy  that  is  but 
faintly  tinged  with  foreign  thought.  They  repre- 
sent a  purely  Russian  type  of  socialism.  The 
pivotal  point  of  their  philosophy  rests  upon  the 
so-called  "peculiarly  Russian  institution,"  the  peas- 
ant commune.  Direct  descendants  of  the  populists 
of  the  sixties  and  seventies,  they  see  in  the  peasant 
commune  a  ready  instrmnent  for  the  establishment 
of  a  sociahst  state.  Russia,  they  declare,  because  of 
the  presence  of  this  commune,  can  escape  the  agony 
and  travail  of  capitalistic  development,  and  unlike 
western  Em'ope,  can  at  once  pass  into  a  sociahst 
form  of  national  economy.  Their  attitude  toward 
the  materiahstic  conception  of  history  and  the  class 
struggle,  the  comer-stones  of  Marxism,  is  on  the 
whole  negative.  Nor  do  they  draw  any  distinction 
between  the  intellectual  and  manual  workers. 

The  chief  interest  of  the  Social-Revolutionaries 
has  always  been  the  peasant.  They  do  not  ignore 
the  industrial  proletariat.  In  their  official  program 
they  have  incorporated  numerous  provisions  calcu- 
late to  improve  the  welfare  of  the  factory  worker, 


SOCIAL-REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE  PEASANT    237 

and,  like  the  Marxians,  they  champion  as  their  ulti- 
mate goal  nationalization  and  sociahzation  of  indus- 
try. But  their  main  endeavors  have  always  been  in 
the  interest  of  the  mouzhik,  in  whose  commune  they 
discern  a  panacea  for  Russia.  In  fact  the  Social- 
Revolutionaries  have  come  to  be  associated  with  the 
peasant  so  closely,  that  they  have  been  regarded  as 
the  peasant  party,  and  surely  the  peasant  has  not 
been  backward  in  showing  his  allegiance  to  them. 
In  all  elections  since  the  coming  of  the  first  fateful 
Duma,  the  peasant  has  always  supported  them  or 
their  alhes,  the  Laborites. 

How  then  did  the  Social-Revolutionaries  propose 
to  solve  the  land  problem,  now  that  they  were  at  the 
helm  of  the  Ministry  of  Agriculture,  and  that  one  of 
their  most  popular  leaders,  Kerensky,  was  the  head 
of  the  new  government? 

The  Social-Revolutionaries,  hke  the  Cadets,  pro- 
posed to  leave  the  permanent  solution  of  the  land 
problem  to  the  Constituent,  and  pending  the  opening 
of  that  august  body  they  worked  out  a  series  of 
provisional  ameliorating  measures. 

As  regards  their  permanent  solution  of  the  land 
question,  that  is,  the  land  law  they  were  prepared  to 
urge  upon  the  Constituent,  we  find  its  principles  stated 
in  their  party  platform  in  the  following  passage: 

"  In  the  question  of  rebuilding  the  land  regime  the 
Party  of  the  Social-Revolutionaries,  in  the  interest 


238    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

of  socialism  and  the  struggle  against  the  bourgeois- 
property  foundations,  strives  to  lean  upon  the  com- 
munal and  labor  conceptions,  traditions  and  forms 
of  existence  of  the  Russian  peasantry,  especially  on 
the  conviction  widely  spread  among  them  that  the 
land  is  nobody's,  and  that  the  right  to  its  use  is 
acquired  only  through  labor.  In  conformity  with 
its  general  views  on  the  problems  of  the  revolution 
in  the  village,  the  party  demands  socialization 
of  Land,  that  is,  the  removal  of  land  from  the  proc- 
esss  of  exchange  and  private  ownership  of  individ- 
uals and  groups  and  the  placing  of  it  under  pubhc 
ownership  on  the  follomng  basis:  all  lands  pass  into 
the  administration  of  central  and  local  bodies  of 
self-government,  beginning  with  the  democratically 
organized  casteless  \'illage  and  city  communes  and 
ending  with  the  regional  and  central  institutions 
(administrations  of  settlements,  migrations,  and 
land  fimds) ;  the  use  of  land  is  determined  by  equita- 
ble utilization,  that  is  by  providing  a  consuming  norm 
derived  from  personal,  either  individual  or  group 
labor;  a  rental  levied  in  the  form  of  a  special  tax,  is 
devoted  to  social  needs;  the  use  of  land  not  of  a 
specifically  local  significance — the  vast  forests  and 
fisheries — is  regulated  by  the  central  organs  of  self- 
government;  the  sub-surface  deposits  become  the 
property  of  the  state;  the  land  becomes  pubhc  prop- 
erty without  compensation;  those  sustaining  losses 


SOCIAI^REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE  PEASANT    239 

through  this  reversal  of  property  rights,  are  entitled 
to  no  more  aid  than  is  necessary  to  maintain  existence 
during  the  interval  of  adaptation  to  the  new  condi- 
tions of  hfe." 

The  main  features,  then,  of  the  land-law  as  pro- 
posed by  the  Social-Revolutionaries,  are,  the  aboH- 
tion  of  all  forms  of  private  property  in  land;  no 
compensation  to  losers  of  land;  allotment  of  land  only 
to  those  toiling  with  their  own  hands,  and  not  with 
hired  labor;  the  amount  of  land  apportioned  to  be 
determined  by  the  consuming  norm  of  the  peasant. 
The  Social-Democrats  have  always  denounced  the 
Social-Revolutionaries  as  Utopians  and  dreamers. 
Russia,  they  insist,  must  pass  through  a  capitalistic 
development,  must  attain  that  concentration  of 
wealth,  which  Marx  declared  was  necessary  for  any 
country  to  reach  before  it  could  develop  the  produc- 
tive instrumentahty  indispensable  to  a  socialist 
state,  and  before  it  could  possibly  develop  a  class- 
conscious  proletariat  ready  and  fit  to  assume  control 
of  industries.  The  attempt  to  eliminate  the  class 
struggle  from  the  village  and  to  lump  all  peasants, 
rich  and  poor,  together  as  though  all  were  actuated 
by  the  same  motives,  the  Social-Democrats  have 
likewise  bitterly  assailed.  The  entire  theory  of  the 
Social-Revolutionaries  with  the  commune  as  its 
fundamental  base,  the  Russian  Marxians  have 
volubly  attacked  and  ridiculed. 


240    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Nevertheless  the  peasant  found  in  the  Social- 
Revolutionary  pronouncements  an  expression  of  his 
own  innate  desires.  "Land  and  Freedom,"  "All 
Land  to  the  People/'  these  popular  slogans  of  the 
Social-Revolutionaries  caught  his  imagination.  The 
peasant  masses,  it  must  be  noted,  do  not  really 
understand  the  significance  of  the  socialization 
scheme,  which  the  Social-Revolutionary  party  advo- 
cates. That  it  imphes  the  abolition  of  his  own  right 
to  private  property  in  land,  even  to  the  small  strip  he 
acquired  under  the  old  regime,  he  does  not  imagine, 
and  would  not  at  all  be  disposed  to  accept.  He  is  at- 
tracted chiefly  by  the  promise  of  the  Social-Revolu- 
tionaries to  confiscate  the  big  estates  and  to  distribute 
them  among  those  who  claim  their  right  to  them, 
that  is,  to  those  who  till  them. 

Meantime  a  series  of  temporary  measures  were 
put  through  by  the  new  Ministry  of  Agriculture. 
An  elaborate  system  of  land  committees  was  in- 
stituted upon  whom  devolved  the  task  of  carrying 
out  the  immediate  ameliorating  measures.  There 
were  township,  county,  province  committees  and 
also  one  national  or  central.  The  functions  of  these 
committees,  especially  those  of  a  local  character, 
was  to  enforce  whatever  decrees  the  Central  Land 
Committee  or  the  Pri visional  Government  might 
issue,  and  to  assist  in  any  way  they  could  in  the 
maintenance   of   order    in    the    villages   and    thus 


SOCIAI^REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE  PEASANT    241 

help  bring  the  nation  peacefully  to  the  Constituent. 
All  differences  that  might  arise  between  peasant  and 
landlord  or  peasant  and  peasant  with  respect  to  the 
price  of  rentals,  the  wages  of  farm  labor,  the  disposi- 
tion of  available  public  and  private  lands,  that  had 
not  been  cultivated  by  the  peasant,  they  were  to 
settle.  They  were  also  to  help  secure  seed,  imple- 
ments, animal  or  machine  power  for  the  use  of  the 
peasant.  In  case  the  local  committees  could  not 
settle  a  point  of  difference,  the  matter  was  presented 
to  the  next  higher,  that  is  county  committee,  and 
from  there  it  might  be  carried  higher  until  it  reached 
the  Central  Land  Committee,  which  was  the  final 
arbiter. 

The  make-up  of  these  committees  was  of  a  repre- 
sentative character.  In  the  towns  they  were  elected, 
five  in  each,  by  all  men  and  women  residents,  twenty 
years  old  and  over.  In  the  county  they  were  made 
up  of  one  representative  from  each  volost  (town) 
committee,  and  four  from  the  county  zemsky  assem- 
bly; in  the  province  one  from  each  county,  one  from 
the  capital,  four  from  the  provincial  zemsky  assem- 
bly, and  the  Central  Land  Committee  was  made  up 
of  twenty-five  members  appomted  by  the  govern- 
ment, all  experts  in  agrarian  and  agricultiual  matters, 
one  from  each  pofitical  party,  three  from  the  Workers' 
and  Soldiers'  Soviets,  six  from  the  Peasant  Central 
Soviet  and  one  from  each  of  the  province  committees 


242    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

as  well  as  three  from  the  Provisional  Committee  of 
the  now  defunct  Duma.  The  process  of  setting  up 
these  committees  was  by  no  means  easy  owing  to  the 
size  of  the  country,  poor  means  of  transportation 
and  the  general  break-down  of  the  economic  and 
poUtical  organizations  caused  by  the  war  and  the 
revolution. 

To  facihtate  the  work  of  these  committees  the 
Minister  of  Agriculture  issued  the  decree  forbidding 
all  further  private  transactions  in  land.  Such  a 
decree  was  absolutely  necessary  to  enable  the  land 
committees  to  dispose  of  non-peasant  lands  during 
the  interval  pending  the  opening  of  the  Constituent 
in  a  manner  more  or  less  satisfactory  to  the  peasant. 

However,  the  success  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment and  the  Social-Revolutionaries  in  holding  the 
allegiance  of  the  mouzhik  depended  not  upon  their 
temporary  measures  of  relief,  but  upon  the  ultimate 
solution  of  the  land  problem  in  accord  with  the 
wishes  of  the  peasant.  Rightly  or  wrongly  the 
peasant  was  eager  to  come  into  control  of  the  land 
at  once.  He  was  fearful  lest  he  should  again  be 
cheated  out  of  what  he  regarded  was  his  due.  In 
other  words,  to  sustain  the  faith  of  the  peasant  the 
Provisional  Government  and  the  Social-Revolu- 
tionaries should  either  have  hastened  the  sunmioning 
of  the  Constituent,  or  else  should  have  issued  a 
decree   at   once   confiscating   all    the   land.     Says 


SOCIAL-REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE  PEASANT    243 

Bublikov,  a  man  of  keen  business  insight,  whom  no 
Russian  will  accuse  of  being  contaminated  with 
radical  doctrines: 

"The  Provisional  Government  should  have  pro- 
claimed the  land  the  property  of  the  state,  the  gov- 
ernment meanwhile  assuming  temporary  possession 
of  it  and  leaving  its  final  disposition  to  the  Constit- 
uent." Action,  quick  and  decisive,  was  in  the  opin- 
ion of  Bublikov  indispensable  in  order  to  sustain  the 
faith  of  the  peasant  in  the  existing  regime,  for  in  a 
revolution  with  institutions  and  laws  in  a  fluid  state 
and  practically  no  forms  of  outward  restraint  in 
existence,  emotions,  ideas,  and  allegiances  shift  up 
and  down  with  tremendous  rapidity. 

But  Kerensky  and  Chernov  and  all  their  advisers 
and  counsellors  did  not  dare  to  act  in  accord  with 
the  manifest  will  of  the  peasant.  Not  because  they 
had  lost  their  sympathy  for  the  mouzhik.  Leaders 
of  the  peasant  party,  they,  more  fully  than  others, 
appreciated  his  desperate  condition.  Nor  were 
they  in  any  way  actuated  by  motives  of  personal 
gain.  Their  fiercest  enemies  have  not  accused  them 
of  that.  To  understand  the  reason  for  their  failure 
to  act  decisively  we  must  first  inform  ourselves  of 
the  general  pohtical  condition  of  the  time,  and  the 
policies  the  government  in  power  had  sought  to 
pursue. 

The  tragedy  of  Kerensky's  government  was  that  it 


244    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

was  caught  in  the  toils  of  a  horrible  fatality.  It  was 
a  coalition  government,  that  did  not  coalesce.  The 
conflicting  interests  represented  in  the  government 
could  under  no  circumstances  be  made  to  unite.  As 
far  as  Kerensky  was  concerned  he  strove  honestly 
and  strenuously  to  reconcile  the  forces  of  the  war 
and  the  Revolution,  and  no  right-minded  person 
will  denounce  him  for  his  failure  to  effect  such  a  rec- 
onciliation. It  was  simply  beyond  the  powers  of 
any  individual  or  set  of  individuals  to  harmonize 
two  gigantic  forces  arrayed  against  each  other. 
War  demands  unity,  sacrifice,  forgetfulness  of  self, 
constant  effort,  whereas  revolution  disrupts  order, 
shatters  unity,  invites  social  clashes,  hampers 
concerted  effort.  War  demands  a  complete  cessa- 
tion of  inner  struggles,  and  the  concentration  of  a 
nation's  wealth  and  strength  upon  the  fight  against 
the  external  foe,  whereas  a  revolution  impUes  the 
outburst  of  inner  struggles.  A  review  of  Kerensky's 
position  and  poUcies  fully  substantiates  the  above 
assertions.  Kerensky  in  his  desire  to  prosecute  the 
war,  or  at  least  to  remain  a  partner  of  the  AUies, 
wished  to  maintain  military  discipUne  in  the  ranks, 
but  interested  in  preserving  ''the  fruits  of  the  Revo- 
lution," and  in  fear  of  counter-revolutionary  plots  in 
the  army  among  old-regime  officers,  he  issued  the 
decree  of  the  democratization  of  the  army,  placing  a 
check  upon  the  powers  and  activities  of  the  officers, 


SOCIAL-REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE  PEASANT    245 

and  thereby  wrecking  what  Uttle  discipUne  had 
remained  in  the  army  after  the  overthrow  of  the 
Czar.  He  wanted  to  have  a  revolutionary  army  that 
would  fight  with  vigor  and  zest  for  a  revolutionary 
cause,  and  yet  he  failed  even  to  induce  the  Allies  to 
revise  or  discard  the  secret  treaties  into  which  they 
had  entered  with  the  Czar,  and  thus  had  not  only 
robbed  himself  of  the  biggest  moral  argument  to 
promote  the  revolutionary  war-spirit  in  the  army, 
but  had  yielded  to  his  enemies  the  most  powerful 
weapon  they  could  wield  to  annihilate  the  war- 
spirit  of  the  soldier  by  enabhng  them  to  tell  the  latter 
that  the  continuation  of  the  war  was  not  for  a  rev- 
olutionary but  for  a  purely  imperialistic  cause. 
No  happier  was  the  Kerensky  administration  with 
the  task  of  maintaining  harmony  between  capital 
and  labor.  The  war,  of  course,  demanded  such  unity 
between  these  two  classes  so  as  to  keep  up  the  al- 
ready greatly  depleted  productivity  of  the  country. 
But  the  Revolution  inspired  the  workers  to  demand 
new  concessions  and  conditions  to  which  Russian 
capital  had  not  been  accustomed,  and  which  it  in 
many  instances  had  declared  that  it  would  not  and 
could  not  grant.  All  of  Kerensky's  efforts  to  bring 
peace  between  capital  and  labor  failed  most  tragi- 
cally, for  neither  class  was  wilhng  to  renounce  its 
hostility  to  the  other.  In  consequence  of  all  this  the 
production  of  coal,  iron,  steel,  ammunition,  arms, 


246    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

implements,  railroad  supplies,  kerosene  and  other 
things  all  classes,  especially  the  soldier,  needed  des- 
perately, slumped  heavily,  and  with  a  lack  of  com- 
modities, unrest  could  not  be  expected  to  subside, 
and  yet  the  greater  the  unrest  the  greater  was  the 
diminution  of  supplies,  and  hence  the  greater  the 
sources  of  social  irritation.  It  was  a  vicious  circle  of 
cause  and  effect,  resulting  in  galloping  economic 
deterioration.  Under  these  circumstances  had  Ker- 
ensky  and  Chernov  attempted  to  "confiscate  the 
land,  they  would  only  have  tended  further  to  dis- 
rupt the  war-mechanism,  which  they  wished  to 
strengthen,  for  no  sooner  would  such  a  decree  have 
been  issued,  than  the  influential  business  elements 
in  the  country,  nearly  all  heavy  investors  in  land, 
and  always  the  first  to  suffer  losses  at  any  encroach- 
ment of  the  government  upon  the  sacredness  of 
private  property,  would  have  turned  against  the 
government,  and  without  their  support  there  was  not 
even  a  remote  possibihty  of  continuing  the  war  at 
that  time. 

And  yet  Kerensky  would  not  step  out  of  the 
war.  It  was  a  tragic  situation,  but  there  was  no  way 
out  of  it  for  Kerensky  and  the  moderate  Social-Rev- 
olutionaries. About  all  they  could  do  was  to  deluge 
the  people  with  fervid  oratory.  Kerensky  appealed 
eloquently  to  the  patriotism,  the  conscience,  the 
civic   pride   and   the   personal   self-esteem   of   the 


SOCIAL-REVOLUTIONARIES  AND  THE  PEASANT    247 

people,  especially  the  soldiers,  peasants  and  pro- 
letarians. Now  in  the  early  days  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, as  long  as  it  was  still  a  question  of  exterminating 
the  old  regime,  and  while  the  people  were  still  aglow 
with  the  thrill  of  the  miraculous  victory  over  Czar- 
ism,  the  eloquent  utterances  of  Kerensky  swayed 
them  into  his  support.  But  when  the  flush  of 
exultation  had  ebbed;  when  the  hour  had  arrived 
for  the  settlement  of  the  pressing  problems  of  the 
moment;  when  sudden  cleavages  and  violent  clashes 
between  the  various  hostile  social  groups  had  broken 
loose,  the  power  of  words,  the  inspiration  of  the 
eloquent  phrase  had  lost  its  magic  hold  of  the  masses. 
Acts,  only  acts,  could  have  sustained  faith  and  en- 
thusiasm for  Kerensky's  regime.  And  yet  Kerensky 
dared  not  act  decisively  for  the  war  and  simultane- 
ously for  the  Revolution,  for  any  act  favoring  the 
one  tended  to  imdermine  the  other  and  vice  versa. 
All  of  the  makeshift  instruments  of  support  that 
Kerensky  and  his  advisers  had  summoned  into 
existence — the  Moscow  Conference,  the  Democratic 
Conference,  the  Preliminary  Parliament — were  a 
brilliant  illustration  of  the  helpless  impossible  posi- 
tion of  the  Coalition  Government  considering  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  came  into  existence, 
and  the  aims  it  sought  to  promulgate.  In  all  of 
these  assembhes  Judging  by  the  speeches  deUvered 
and  the  resolutions  proposed  and  disposed  of  there, 


218    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

practically  all  that  the  delegates  did  was  to  denounce 
and  berate  each  other,  and  about  all  Kerensky 
could  do  was  to  mount  the  platform  at  frequent 
intervals  and  urge  the  various  factions  with  all  his 
innate  sincerity  and  often  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  to 
forget  their  differences,  to  be  good,  and  to  trust  each 
other. 

Such  a  condition  was  bound  to  react  disastrously 
upon  the  morale  of  the  peasant.  From  day  to  day 
his  discontent  mounted  and  his  defiance  of  existing 
authority  grew  bolder,  all  the  more  so  because  of 
the  scarcity  of  necessary  commodities.  In  many 
provinces  acts  of  violence  increased  constantly.  In 
the  Rostov  province,  for  example,  the  peasants  armed 
with  clubs,  ousted  the  government  agents  who  had 
come  to  ask  for  the  delivery  of  grain.  In  Kiev  peas- 
ants buried  their  grain  underground.  They  would 
not  sell  it,  when  they  could  get  nothing  but  paper 
money  for  it.  In  Orenburg  the  slogan  spread  in  the 
villages  ''sow  less,  it  will  be  taken  from  you  anyway." 
In  Samara  peasants  decided  not  to  send  a  pound  of 
bread  to  the  "city  idlers."  Land  committees,  swept 
along  by  the  rising  discontent,  usurped  their  author- 
ity— confiscated  land  at  will  and  even  implements, 
stock,  grain  and  fodder.  Said  Peshekhonov,  Minis- 
ter of  Supphes,  in  Kerensky 's  cabinet,  in  an  appeal 
to  the  peasants  in  the  fall  of  1917: 

"In  many  places  the  peasants  have  committed 


SOCIAL-REVOLUTIONARIES  .\ND  THE  PEASANT    249 

unlawful  acts,  which  are  quite  detrimental  to  this 
year's  crop.  The  peasants  do  not  allow  the  use  of 
agricultiu-al  machines  in  the  harv^esting  of  crops  and 
in  the  plowing  of  fields;  they  remove  from  the  landed 
estates  war-prisoners  and  city  laborers;  they  compel 
proprietors  to  pay  war-prisoners  higher  wages  than 
the  government  had  an-anged;  they  raise  the  prices 
of  their  labor  contrary  to  contracts;  they  seize  by 
force  crops,  tools,  machmery;  they  do  not  allow  the 
harvesting  of  grains,  the  plowing  and  preparation 
of  fields  for  new  planting." 

It  would  only  clutter  the  pages  of  this  book  to 
quote  further  similar  complaints  from  Chernov, 
Kerensky,  the  Soldiers'  and  Workers'  as  well  as  the 
Peasant's  Central  Soviets.  Of  course  it  is  easy  to 
condemn  the  peasant  for  his  failure  to  respond  to  the 
appeals  of  various  leaders  and  parties,  for  his  lack  of 
patriotism,  for  his  implacable  selfishness,  for  his 
disregard  of  existing  legal  authority.  We  should 
remember,  however,  that  in  his  past,  in  his  opportu- 
nities for  self-development,  in  his  education  or  rather 
lack  of  it,  in  his  social  privileges  or  lack  of  them,  in 
his  contact  with  the  government  and  its  various 
agents  and  agencies,  there  was  nothing  that  could 
inculcate  in  him  a  civic  pride,  a  national  conscious- 
ness, a  patriotic  fervor  and  a  respect  for  governmental 
authority.  We  must  always  seek  to  understand  the 
peasant  in  terms  of  his  and  not  our  environment. 


250    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

In  the  end  the  situation  grew  so  desperate,  that 
Kerensky  and  Avxentjev  ordered  the  suppression  and 
arrest  of  the  disobedient  land  committees,  and  this 
only  tended  further  to  intensify  the  hostiUty  of  the 
peasant.  Events  were  moving  to  a  climax.  In 
Tambov  the  peasants  had  practically  effected  a 
complete  land-revolution  in  defiance  of  the  govern- 
ment. To  stave  off  further  chaos  and  anarchy  in 
the  village,  the  Kerensky  administration  hurriedly 
prepared  a  decree  for  the  immediate  expropriation 
of  the  big  estates.  This  decree  more  than  any  other 
fact  demonstrates  the  intensity  of  the  agrarian 
crisis  during  the  last  days  of  the  Provisional  govern- 
ment. But  it  was  too  late  to  act.  The  forces  of  the 
opposition  had  gathered  too  much  momentum. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT 

Just  as  the  Social-Revolutionaries  began  their 
career  with  a  program  almost  entirely  devoted  to  the 
needs  and  interests  of  the  peasant,  paying  but  slight 
heed  to  those  of  the  city  proletariat,  so  the  Social- 
Democrats  or  Marxians  of  Russia  entered  upon  their 
poUtical  career  with  a  program  dedicated  almost 
exclusively  to  the  problems  of  the  industrial  laborer, 
practically  ignoring  those  of  the  peasant.  Looking 
upon  life  from  the  vantage  point  of  orthodox  Marx- 
ism, they  were  wedded  to  the  theory  that  the  Russian 
peasant  was  fated  to  go  through  the  process  of 
proletarization.  Land,  like  industry,  they  preached, 
was  destined  to  concentrate  into  ever  fewer  hands, 
the  number  of  landless  peasants  to  increase,  grow 
class-conscious  and  wage  an  ever-gromng  war 
against  the  landowners,  until  socialization  of  land, 
Uke  sociaUzation  of  industry,  became  a  fact.  It  must 
be  understood  that  the  Social-Democrats  did  not 
completely  disregard  the  immediate  needs  of  the 
peasant.  On  the  contrary,  in  their  general  struggle 
for  poUtical,  social  and  cultural  betterment  they  were 
concerned  about  the  mouzhik  as  much  as  about  the 


252    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

proletariat.  Only  to  them  the  peasant  problem  was 
not  distinct  from  the  labor  problem,  and  the  solution 
of  the  former  they  understood  strictly  in  terms  of  the 
latter.  To  the  most  insistent  cry  of  the  peasant  for 
land,  they  offered  no  reply.  This  very  cry  seemed 
to  them  to  be  an  indication  that  the  peasant  was  a 
potential  bourgeois,  who  upon  the  acquisition  of  a 
homestead  and  implements,  would  become  a  defender 
of  the  institution  of  private  property,  and  would 
align  himself  with  other  classes  of  the  bourgeoisie  in 
the  struggle  against  the  proletariat,  both  rural  and 
urban.  Such,  indeed,  was  the  attitude  of  all  Euro- 
pean Marxists  toward  the  peasantry  of  Europe.  And 
when  the  German  Socialist  Congress  in  Breslau 
passed  a  resolution  by  a  big  majority,  barring  the 
peasantry  from  a  distinct  place  in  their  program,  the 
Russian  Social-Democrats  hailed  the  decision  with 
exultation,  and  felt  greatly  relieved  at  not  having 
taken  the  peasant,  like  the  city  laborer,  under  their 
wings. 

Life,  however,  proved  stronger  than  the  resolution 
of  the  Russian  Marxists.  The  growing  restlessness 
of  the  peasant,  constant  outbreaks  of  rebellion  in  the 
village,  and  a  closer  study  and  understanding  of  the 
conditions  and  the  psychology  of  the  peasantry, 
convinced  them  that  the  economic  problems  of  the 
village  demanded  specific  and  immediate  attention. 
Nickolai  Lenine  was  among  the  first  Russian  Marx- 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         253 

ists  to  comprehend  the  situation,  and  it  was  he  who 
prepared  the  first  agrarian  program  of  the  Russian 
Social-Democrats,  which  was  adopted  at  the  London 
conference  in  1903.  It  was  a  very  mild  program. 
Its  outstanding  feature  was  the  advocacy  of  the 
return  to  the  peasant  of  the  strips  of  land  that  had 
been  cut  off  from  his  holdings  after  the  emancipation 
{otrezki).  It  also  favored  the  cancellation  of  further 
indemnity  fees,  the  abrogation  of  the  existing  indi- 
rect tax,  which  pressed  heavily  upon  the  peasant, 
and  the  adoption  of  a  direct  tax.  Lenine's  aim, 
according  to  his  own  words,  in  urging  such  an  agra- 
rian program,  was  to  open  wide  the  road  of  capitalis- 
tic development  in  Russian  peasant  agriculture,  and 
to  remove  the  existing  obstacles  to  the  free  growth 
of  the  class  struggle  in  the  village.  In  other  words, 
the  aim  of  the  Russian  Marxists  had  not  changed. 
They  were  as  firm  as  ever  in  their  theory  of  Rus- 
sia's transformation  into  a  socialist  state  through 
the  class  struggle.  They  only  changed  their  tactics 
in  dealing  with  the  peasant,  so  as  to  accelerate  the 
consummation  of  this  aim. 

Then  came  the  Revolution  of  1905.  As  already 
mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter  the  part  the  peasant 
played  in  the  Revolution  was  a  revelation  to  all  the 
rest  of  Russia.  The  extent  and  intensity  of  the 
agrarian  disorders,  convinced  the  Social-Democrats 
that  Lenine's  program  of  "otrezki"   (literally  cut- 


254    THE  RUSSIAN  PEAS.\NT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

tings),  that  is,  the  return  of  these  to  the  mouzhik, 
would  by  no  means  satisfy  him.    Peasant  resolutions 
and  utterances  at  hundreds  of  gatherings  breathed 
determination  to  seize  all  the  big  estates.    More  than 
ever  the  Marxists  realized  what  a  tremendous  revolu- 
tionary force  the  peasantry  were,  and  that  no  rev- 
olution   ever    would    be    successful    without    their 
support.     Furthermore,  they  perceived  that,  after 
all,  the  chasm  that  existed  between  the  economic 
interests  of  the  peasant  and  those  of  the  proletariat 
could  by  proper  tactics  be  filled,  the  revolutionary 
energies  of  both  classes  combmed  and  steered  along 
a  common  channel.    Therefore,  like  nearly  all  the 
political  parties  eager  to  win  the  support  of  the  peas- 
ant, the  Social-Democrats  at  their  third  congress  in 
1905,  adopted  quite  a  radical  agrarian  program  the 
keynote  of  which  was  expressed  in  the  ''tactical" 
resolution   in    which    they   pledged   themselves   to 
instruct  "all  party  organizations  to  spread  the  idea 
among  the  masses,  that  the  Social-Democracy  sets 
for  itself  the  task  of  offering  the  most  energetic 
support  to  all  revolutionary  enterprises  of  the  peas- 
antry,   conducive    to    the    improvement    of    their 
condition,   even   to   the  point  of  confiscating   the 
private,    state,    church,    monastery   and   appanage 
lands." 

Three  specific  agrarian  plans  were  presented  for 
consideration  at  that  congress,  the  Menshevist,  the 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         255 

Bolshevist  and  the  Partitionist.  Since  the  last  one 
played  but  an  insignificant  part  in  the  debates  and 
the  subsequent  agrarian  activities  of  the  Social- 
Democrats,  it  may  be  entirely  ignored  as  far  as  the 
purpose  of  the  present  discussion  is  concerned.  As 
regards  the  two  others  it  must  be  emphasized  that 
both  aimed  at  the  same  result — the  furtherance  of 
the  capitalistic  development  of  Russian  agriculture 
and  the  promotion  of  the  proletarization  of  the 
village.  The  differences  clung  round  the  methods 
of  hastening  that  process — differences  so  funda- 
mental as  far  as  the  general  tactics  of  the  Mensheviki 
and  Bolsheviki  were  concerned,  that  they  persistently 
clove  the  two  factions  apart,  until  they  finally  split 
them  into  two  hostile  parties. 

The  Mensheviki  under  the  leadership  of  Maslov, 
an  expert  in  agrarian  affairs,  proposed  municipaliza- 
tion of  land,  that  is  its  transfer,  with  the  exception 
of  certain  local  holdings,  into  the  control  of  ''the 
large  bodies  of  local  administration,  which  have  been 
democratically  elected."  The  peasant  was  to  receive 
his  land  through  these  self-governing  bodies  and  pay 
his  rental  to  them.  The  Bolsheviki,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  Lenine  as  their  spokesman,  proposed 
nationalization  of  land,  that  is,  the  abolition  of  all 
forms  of  private  property  in  land  and  its  transfer 
to  the  control  of  the  state,  as  represented  by  centrally 
constituted  bodies,  the  peasant  receiving  his  land 


256    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

from,  and  paying  his  rental  to  the  state.  Both 
Maslov  and  Lenine  proposed  to  have  all  the  land 
turned  over  to  the  use  of  the  peasant,  only  Maslov 
favored  his  munieipahzation  scheme,  chiefly  because 
he  believed  that  the  placing  of  the  control  over  the 
land  in  local,  democratically  elected  bodies,  would 
be  the  most  powerful  protection  against  the  return 
of  a  reactionary  regime.  On  the  other  hand,  Lenine 
urged  nationahzation,  chiefly  because  he  beheved 
that  that  would  more  fully  aid  in  the  promotion  of 
the  class  struggle  in  the  village.  To  Maslov's  argu- 
ment that  nationahzation  of  land  might  pave  the 
way  to  the  restoration  of  the  old  regime,  Lenine 
repUed  that  the  success  of  any  radical  land  reform 
depended  upon  the  thorough  democratization  of  the 
national  government.  If  such  democratization  did 
not  take  place,  the  big  estates  would  continue  to 
remam  in  the  possession  of  the  landlords  and  restora- 
tion was  possible  anyway;  and  if  there  was  such 
democratization,  the  landlords  would  be  expro- 
priated, and  there  would  be  no  danger  of  restoration. 
In  this  controversy  Lenine  leaned  more  toward 
revolutionary  and  Maslov  toward  peaceful  tactics. 
The  Mensheviki  wanted  the  land  confiscated  with- 
out compensation,  in  a  legal  manner  by  a  duly 
convened  state  authority,  through  orderly  poUtical 
action,  while  Lenme  advocated  immediate  seizure  of 
estates  by  the  peasants  themselves.     His  program 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         257 

provided  for  'Hhe  establishment  of  peasant  com- 
mittees for  the  immediate  annihihation  of  all 
traces  of  the  power  and  privileges  of  landlords  and 
for  the  actual  administration  of  seized  lands  prior 
to  the  inaugiu:'ation  of  the  new  land  regime  by  the 
National  Constituent  Assembly." 

When  the  March  revolution  came,  scarcely  any  of 
the  Socialist  leaders  had  regarded  that  event  as 
anything  more  than  a  political  or  bourgeois  revolu- 
tion, ushering  in  poHtical  democracy  and  the  oppor- 
tunity to  pursue  economic  development  along  the 
well-trodden  path  followed  by  other  democratic 
nations.  Then  I.enine  arrived  in  Russia  from 
Switzerland.  He  had  all  the  time  favored  revolu- 
tionary action  and  championed  the  idea  of  a  perma- 
nent revolution.  It  was  now  his  turn  to  shock  his 
friends,  both  Bolsheviki  and  Mensheviki,  when  on 
the  fifteenth  of  April,  1917,  in  a  speech  at  a  unification 
meeting  of  the  two  factions,  he  openly  stated  that 
the  time  had  come  to  '' discard  the  soiled  Unen  of 
European  democracy"  and  to  press  the  Revolution 
as  far  to  the  left  as  it  would  go,  for  the  proletariat  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  would  respond  and  would  follow 
Russia  in  the  struggle  for  the  final  great  Social 
Revolution.  At  the  close  of  that  speech,  it  is  not 
uninteresting  to  point  out,  Goldenburg  and  Steklov, 
both  Bolshevik  leaders,  vigorously  criticised  Lenine 
for   his   attitude    toward    the    Revolution.      They 


258    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

called  him  a  dreamer,  who  during  his  sojourn  in  a 
foreign  land  had  ahenated  himself  from  Russian 
reahties.  Only  Madame  KoUontay,  Minister  of 
Social  Welfare  under  the  Bolsheviki,  fully  shared  his 
views.  He,  however,  remained  firm  in  his  advocacy 
of  the  Social  Revolution,  and  the  subsequent  events 
and  conditions  in  Russia — the  decay  of  the  morale  of 
the  army,  the  breakdowTi  of  the  national  economic 
structure  and  the  general  violent  unrest  in  the 
country,  offered  a  fertile  soil  for  the  growth  of  his 
conception  of  the  Revolution. 

Not  that  the  Russian  masses,  especially  the  peas- 
antry, shared  Lenine's  theory  of  the  Social  Revolu- 
tion. The  peasant,  it  must  be  stated,  does  not  even 
comprehend  the  significance  of  the  phrase  Social 
Revolution.  The  peasant  is  not  a  theorist.  Ignorant 
of  history  and  poUtics,  a  hard-headed  reahst,  he 
gauges  the  world  in  terms  of  his  inunediate  material 
interests.  Lenine's  plans  for  the  ultimate  recon- 
struction of  Russia  and  the  world  by  means  of  the 
dictatorship  of  the  proletariat,  did  not  in  the  least 
interest  him.  Nowhere  in  peasant  revolutions  or 
peasant  journals  of  that  time  can  one  discover  a  keen 
curiosity  in  these  plans.  As  a  matter  of  fact  in  the 
early  days  of  the  Revolution  the  term  Bolshevik  was 
quite  new  to  the  peasant.  During  the  Revolution  of 
1905,  the  Bolsheviki  had  mustered  but  an  insignifi- 
cant following  in  the  villages — it  was  the  Social- 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         259 

Revolutionaries  who  had  an  overwhehning  influence 
over  the  peasantry — and  after  the  Revolution  the 
Bolshevik  party  had  become  practically  extinct, 
surviving  only  in  the  minds  of  its  leaders,  who  were 
mostly  in  Siberia — in  jails  and  in  foreign  exile. 

But  Lenine's  theories,  Bolsheviki  programs  with 
regard  to  the  immediate  tasks  of  the  Revolution, 
coincided  with  and  were  expressive  of,  the  immediate 
yearnings  of  the  masses,  yearnings,  which  soon  after 
the  overthrow  of  the  Czar  found  vent  in  actions  of 
evergrowing  magnitude.  A  mere  glance  at  the  inter- 
nal situation  will  suffice  to  corroborate  this  state- 
ment. The  soldier,  maltreated,  betrayed,  defeated 
in  the  war,  compelled  to  endure  untold  hardships, 
often  fighting,  according  to  the  testimony  of  General 
Yanushkevitch,  with  clubs,  stones  or  with  his  boots, 
had  lost  interest  in  the  war  and  yearned  for  its  end, 
and  the  Bolsheviki  promised  him  peace.  The 
workers,  kept  under  the  Czar  without  even  elemen- 
tary civil,  political,  and  economic  rights,  barred 
from  the  opportunity  to  improve  their  economic 
condition  through  collective  effort,  denied  the  right 
of  organization,  strikes,  collective  bargaining,  en- 
tirely at  the  mercy  of  the  employers,  who  were 
protected  by  the  Czar's  armies,  compelled  to  toil 
long  hours  under  unsanitary  conditions  for  a  pitiful 
wage,  with  some  legal  but  no  real  protection — 
excepting  the  charitable  disposition  of  the  employer — ■ 


260    THE  RUSSIAN  PExYSANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

against  disease,  accident,  old  age  and  unemployment, 
now  cried  out  for  a  thorough  change  in  their  condi- 
tion. And  the  Bolsheviki  urged  them  to  demand 
complete  control  of  industry,  and  counselled  them  to 
secure  this  control  by  means  of  revolutionary  action. 
And  as  for  the  peasant,  whose  imdying  dream  was 
more  land,  the  Bolsheviki  encouraged  him  to  help 
himself.  Said  Lenine  in  his  catechism  wTitten  in 
April,  1917,  in  reply  to  the  question  as  to  whether  the 
peasants  ''shall  at  once  take  possession  of  the  land," 
* '  Yes.  The  land  must  be  seized  at  once.  Strict  order 
should  be  maintained  through  the  agency  of  the 
Council  of  Peasant  Deputies.  The  production  of 
bread  and  meat  should  be  increased,  for  the  soldier 
must  be  fed.  The  damaging  of  cattle,  implements, 
etc.,  cannot  be  allowed."  And  in  a  letter  addressed 
to  the  peasant  congress  on  the  3d  of  June,  1917,  he 
repeated  his  message  to  the  mouzhik  in  the  following 
words:  ''There  is  a  debate  on  as  to  whether  or  not 
the  peasantiy  shall  at  once  take  possession  of  the 
land  in  their  localities  without  paying  the  pomiesht- 
chiks  rent  and  without  waiting  for  the  the  Constit- 
uent Assembly.  Our  party  beheves  that  waiting 
for  the  action  of  the  Constituent  is  inadmissible." 
Now  we  may  believe  that  the  tactics  of  the  Bolshe- 
viki in  encouraging  the  peasant,  soldier  and  worker 
to  proceed  to  act  in  accordance  with  their  own 
immediate  desires,  was  ruinous  to  Russia  and  detri- 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         261 

mental  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  This  is  a  matter  of 
personal  opinion.  One's  individual  opinion,  how- 
ever, should  not  obscure  from  him  the  fact,  that  the 
Bolshevist  program,  and  the  desire  and  practice  of 
the  soldier,  peasant  and  worker  were  in  harmony. 

Still  it  is  doubtful  if  the  Bolsheviki  would  have 
swept  into  power  at  the  time  and  in  the  manner  the}^ 
had,  if  a  series  of  external  circumstances  had  not 
favored  their  fortunes.  The  enormous  strain  of  the 
war,  the  intense  suffering  of  the  poorer  classes, 
especially  in  the  cities;  the  demoraUzation  of  the 
army,  which  not  even  machine  guns  could  stop;  the 
failure  of  the  Allies  to  help  Kerensky  morally,  by 
declaring  null  and  void  the  imperialistic  treaties  they 
had  made  with  the  Czar,  and  economically,  bj'" 
pouring  into  Russia  cargoes  of  necessary  supphes; 
the  rise  of  General  Kornilov  against  the  Provisional 
Government  and  the  fear  of  a  counter-revolution  in 
favor  of  the  old  regime,  which  the  event  had  created, 
and  finally  and  especially  the  failure  of  the  Provi- 
sional Government  to  hasten  the  smnmoning  of  the 
Constituent — all  these  paved  the  way  to  power  for 
the  Bolsheviki.  Kerensky  really  was  not  overthrown. 
Like  the  Czar,  he  fell  from  the  sheer  weight  of  his 
tragic  impotence. 

Of  course  there  was  vigorous  opposition  to  the 
activities  of  the  Bolsheviki  in  putting  themselves  in 
power.    The  right  Social-Revolutionaries,  the  Men- 


262    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

sheviki,  the  Cadets,  and  the  Central  Peasant  Soviet, 
which,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  made  up  espe- 
cially of  the  peasant  intelligentzia  and  was  under 
the  leadership  of  the  right  wing  of  the  Social- 
Revolutionaries,  all  these  passionately  condemned 
the  Bolsheviki  for  placing  themselves  in  power.  Yet 
as  far  as  the  vast  masses  were  concerned,  if  there  was 
any  opposition  among  them,  it  was  decidedly  passive, 
for  all  the  afore-mentioned  parties  could  not  muster 
sufficient  physical  force  to  ma.ke  even  a  conspicuous 
resistance  to  the  Bolsheviki.  The  Bolsheviki  alone 
possessed  an  ample  amount  of  physical  force  not 
only  to  make  their  position  secure,  but  to  render 
ineffective  the  efforts  of  the  opposition.  Neither 
the  Cadets  nor  any  of  the  CoaUtion  governments  had 
ever  been  in  a  similar  position.  Now  we  may  think 
the  Russian  masses  stupid  for  their  indifference  or 
acquiescence  in  the  advent  of  the  Bolshevist  govern- 
ment. We  may  deem  them  childishly  credulous  for 
having  been  swayed  by  the  words  ''Land,  Bread, 
Peace,"  which  was  the  slogan  of  the  Bolsheviki.  The 
fact,  however,  remains  that  any  summons  to  revolt 
against  the  new  government  found  practically  no 
response  in  the  barracks,  work-shop  or  village.  No 
less  vehement  an  opponent  of  the  Bolsheviki  than 
Harold  Williams  says:  "The  Bolsheviki  have  con- 
quered almost  the  whole  of  Russian  territory.  They 
are  victorious  in  the  civil  war  less  by  force  of  arms 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         263 

than  by  virtue  of  the  strange  infection  of  their 
agitation  among  the  masses.  It  seems  inevitable 
that  the  whole  of  Russia  must  turn  Bolshevik,  before 
she  can  begin  to  return  to  a  normal  condition." 

Once  in  power  the  Bolsheviki  reahzed  the  im- 
portance of  prompt  action.  They  inmiediately 
began  negotiations  for  peace  so  as  to  make  good  their 
promise  to  the  soldier,  and  nationahzation  of  fac- 
tories so  as  to  make  good  their  promise  to  the  prole- 
tariat, and  at  two  in  the  morning  on  the  eighth  of 
November,  1917,  the  second  day  they  were  in  power, 
they  issued  a  new  land  decree,  to  make  good  their 
promise  to  the  peasant.  This  decree  was  not  a 
creation  of  their  own.  They  had  prepared  no  land 
decree  prior  to  the  fall  of  Kerensky.  The  land  decree 
they  issued  was  a  resolution  of  the  right  Social- 
Revolutionaries  adopted  by  the  Peasant  Congress. 
It  reads  as  follows : 

Decree  on  the  Land 

Of  the  Congress  of  Workmens'  and  Soldiers' 
Delegates  passed  at  the  meeting  of  October  26, 
2  a.  m.  (Russian  style).  . 

1.  All  private  ownership  of  land  is  aboUshed 
immediately  without  any  indemnification. 

2.  All  landowners'  estates,  hkewise  all  the  land  of 
the  Crown,  monasteries,  church  lands,  with  all  their 
hve    stock   and   inventoried  -  property,    homestead 


264    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

constructions  and  all  appurtenances,  pass  over  into 
the  disposition  of  the  Volost  Ijand  Committees  and 
District  Soviets  of  Peasants'  Delegates  until  the 
Constituent  Assembly  meets. 

3.  Any  damage  whatever  done  to  confiscated 
property  belonging  from  now  on  to  the  whole  people, 
is  regarded  as  a  grievous  crime,  punishable  by  the 
Revolutionary  Court  of  Justice.  The  District  So- 
viets of  Peasant  Delegates  shall  take  all  necessaiy 
measures  for  the  observance  of  the  strictest  order 
during  the  confiscation  of  the  lando^vners'  estates, 
for  the  determination  of  the  dimensions  of  the  plots 
of  land  and  which  of  them  are  subject  to  confiscation, 
for  the  drawing  up  of  an  inventory  of  the  whole 
confiscated  property,  and  for  the  strictest  Revolu- 
tionary Guard  of  aU  the  farming  property  on  the 
land  with  aU  the  constructions,  implements,  cattle, 
supphes  of  products,  etc.,  passing  over  to  the  people. 

4.  For  guidance  dming  the  reahzation  of  the 
great  land  reforms  until  their  final  resolution  by  the 
Constituent  Assembly  shall  serve  the  following 
peasant  Nakaz  (Instruction)  drawn  up  on  the  basis 
of. 242  local  peasant  iiakazes  by  the  editor's  office 
of  the  Izvestia  of  the  All-Russian  Soviet  of  Peasant 
Delegates  and  pubhshed  in  No.  88  of  said  Izvestia. 
(Petrograd  No.  88,  August  19,  1917.) 

The  question  re  the  land  may  be  decided  only  by 
the  general  Constituent  Assembly. 


THE  BOLSHEVnCI  AND  THE  PEASANT         265 

The  most  equitable  solution  of  the  land  question 
should  be  as  follows : 

"1.  The  right  of  private  ownership  of  the  land  is 
abolished  forever;  the  land  cannot  be  sold,  nor 
leased,  nor  mortgaged,  nor  alienated  in  any  way. 
All  the  lands  of  the  State,  the  Crown,  the  Cabinet, 
the  monasteries,  Churches,  possession  lands,  entailed 
estates,  private  lands,  pubhc  and  peasant  lands, 
etc.,  shall  be  alienated  without  any  indemnification; 
they  become  the  property  of  the  people  and  the 
usufructory  property  of  all  those  who  cultivate  them 
(who  work  them). 

''For  those  who  will  suffer  from  this  revolution  of 
property  the  right  is  recognized  to  receive  public 
assistance  only  during  the  time  necessary  for  them 
to  adapt  themselves  to  the  new  conditions  of  exist- 
ence. 

"  2.  All  the  underground  depths — the  ore,  naphtha, 
coal,  salt,  etc.,  and  also  the  forests  and  waters,  having 
a  general  importance,  shall  pass  over  into  the  ex- 
clusive use  of  the  States.  All  the  minor  rivers,  lakes, 
forests,  etc.,  shall  be  usufruct  of  communities,  pro- 
vided they  be  under  the  management  of  the  local 
organizations  of  self-government. 

"3.  The  plots  of  land  with  highest  culture — 
gardens,  plantations,  nursery  gardens,  seed-plots, 
greenhouses,  etc. — shall  not  be  divided,  but  they 
shall  be  transformed  into  model  farms  and  handed 


266    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

over  as  the  exclusive  usufruct  of  the  State  or  com- 
munities, in  dependence  on  the  dimensions  or 
importance. 

"4,  Homestead  lands,  town  and  country  lands 
with  private  gardens  and  kitchen  gardens,  remain 
as  usufruct  of  their  present  owners.  The  dimen- 
sions of  such  lands  and  the  rate  of  taxes  to  be  paid 
for  their  use,  shall  be  estabUshed  by  the  laws. 

''5.  Studs,  governmental  and  private  cattle-breed- 
ing and  bird-breeding  enterprises,  etc.,  become  the 
property  of  the  people  and  pass  over  either  for  the 
exclusive  use  of  the  state,  or  a  community,  depending 
on  their  dimensions  and  their  importance. 

''All  questions  of  redeeming  same  shall  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  examination  of  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly. 

"6.  The  right  to  use  the  land  shall  belong  to  all 
the  citizens  (without  distinction  of  sex)  of  the  Rus- 
sian State,  who  wish  to  work  the  land  themselves, 
with  the  help  of  their  families,  or  in  partnership, 
and  only  so  long  as  they  are  capable  of  working  it 
themselves.    No  hired  labor  is  allowed. 

''In  the  event  of  a  temporary  incapacity  of  a  mem- 
ber of  a  village  community  during  the  course  of  two 
years,  the  community  shall  be  bound  to  render  him 
assistance  during  this  period  of  time  by  cultivating 
his  land. 

"Agriculturists  who  in  consequence  of  old  age  or 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         267 

sickness  shall  have  lost  the  possibility  of  cultivating 
their  land,  shall  lose  the  right  to  use  it,  and  they  shall 
receive  instead  a  pension  from  the  State. 

''7.  The  use  of  land  shall  be  distributive,  i.  e.,  the 
land  shall  be  distributed  among  the  laborers  in 
dependence  on  the  local  conditions  at  the  labor  or 
consumptive  rate. 

''The  way  in  which  the  land  is  to  be  used  may  be 
freely  selected:  as  homestead  or  farm,  or  by  com- 
munities, or  associations,  as  will  be  decided  in  the 
separate  villages  and  settlements. 

''8.  All  the  land,  upon  its  ahenation,  is  entered  in 
the  general  popular  land  fund.  The  local  and  central 
self-governing  bodies,  beginning  with  the  demo- 
cratically organized  village  and  town  conmaunities 
and  ending  with  the  Central  Province  institutions, 
shall  see  to  the  distribution  of  the  land  among  the 
persons  desirous  of  working  it. 

''The  land  fund  is  subject  to  periodical  redistribu- 
tions depending  on  the  increase  of  the  population 
and  the  development  of  the  productivity  and  culti- 
vation. 

"Through  all  changes  of  the  limits  of  the  allot- 
ments the  original  kernel  of  the  allotment  must  re- 
main intact. 

"The  land  of  any  members  leaving  the  community 
returns  to  the  land  fund,  and  the  preferential  right 
to  receive  the  allotments  of  retiring  members  belongs 


268    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  their  nearest  relations  or  the  persons  indicated  by 
them. 

''The  vahje  of  the  manuring  and  improvements 
invested  in  the  land,  in  so  far  as  the  same  will  not 
have  been  used  up  when  the  allotment  will  be  re- 
turned to  the  land  fund,  must  be  reimbursed. 

"If  in  some  place  the  land  fund  will  prove  to  be 
insufficient  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  local  popula- 
tion, the  surplus  of  the  population  must  emigrate. 

''The  organization  of  the  emigration,  also  the  costs 
thereof  and  of  providing  the  emigrants  with  the 
necessary  stock,  shall  be  borne  by  the  State. 

"The  emigration  is  carried  out  in  the  following 
order:  first  the  peasants  without  land  who  express 
their  wish  to  emigrate;  then  the  depraved  members 
of  the  conmiunities,  deserters,  etc.;  and  lastly  by 
drawing  lots  on  agreement. 

"All  of  what  is  contained  in  this  Nakaz,  being  the 
expression  of  the  will  of  the  greatest  majority  of 
conscious  peasants  of  the  whole  of  Russia,  is  pro- 
nounced to  be  a  temporary  law  which  pending  the 
opening  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  shall  be  put 
into  execution  as  far  as  possible  immediately  and  in 
some  parts  of  it  gradually,  as  will  be  determined  by 
the  District  Soviets  of  the  Peasant  Delegates. 

"The  land  of  the  peasants  and  cossacks  serving  in 
the  ranks  shall  not  be  confiscated." 

This  decree  has  little  in  connnon  with  the  nation- 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         269 

alization  scheme  which  Lenine  had  been  advocating 
since  1906.  It  is  in  fact  a  program  which  the  Social- 
Democrats  had  for  years  been  denouncing  as  stupid 
and  Utopian.  The  opponents  of  the  Bolsheviki, 
therefore,  did  not  tarry  in  pointing  out  to  Lenine  and 
his  followers  their  flagrant  inconsistency  in  enacting 
as  the  land  law  a  program  they  had  always  ridiculed. 
Certain  of  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  in  exaspera- 
tion at  the  act  of  the  Bolsheviki,  called  it  nothing 
less  than  sheer  theft.  In  defense,  the  Bolsheviki 
urged  the  explanation  that  the  Social-Revolutionary 
agrarian  program  fitted  the  changed  condition  that 
had  been  effected  by  the  Revolution,  and  if  the 
Social-Revolutionaries  wished  to  call  their  procedure 
an  act  of  dishonesty,  it  made  no  difference  to  them. 
They  pointed  out  that  they  had  been  opposed  to 
socialization  of  land  in  a  bourgeois  state,  for  in  such 
a  state  with  industry  and  capital  in  the  control  of 
private  individuals,  socialization  of  land  was  im- 
practicable. But  with  the  overthrow  of  the  bour- 
geois state,  and  with  the  establishment  of  a  socialist 
form  of  national  economy,  such  as  they  aim  at, 
sociahzation  of  land,  they  argued,  is  not  only  logical 
but  indispensable. 

However,  the  subsequent  land  decrees  the  Bol- 
sheviki issued,  the  one  in  September,  1918,  and  the 
other,  the  final  one,  in  February,  1919,  fully  explain- 
ing their  aims  and  methods  and  outlining  detailed 


270    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

provisions  for  the  distribution  and  cultivation  of  the 
land,  as  well  as  their  efforts  to  carry  out  these  pro- 
visions, indicate  quite  a  radical  departure  from  the 
principles  of  land-sociahzation  as  understood  by  the 
Social-Revolutionaries.  In  adopting  the  resolution 
of  the  latter  as  their  initial  decree,  the  Bolsheviki 
evidently  aimed  merely  to  assure  the  peasant  that 
the  land  was  his  and  also  to  remove  from  the  hands 
of  their  most  dangerous  opponents  the  most  formid- 
able weapon  they  had— the  agrarian  program  that 
had  been  acclaimed  by  the  peasantry,  which  was  in 
fact  a  synthesis  of  numerous  peasant  resolutions. 
The  real  aim  of  the  Bolsheviki  land-system  is  stated 
in  the  preamble  of  the  decree  of  February,  1919,  and 
in  a  speech  Lenine  delivered  at  a  convention  of 
delegates  of  agricultural  communes  in  December, 
1918.    The  preamble  reads : 

'Tor  the  purpose  of  completing  the  aboUtion  of 
exploitation  of  man  by  man;  the  organization  of 
rural  economy  on  socialistic  principle  through  the 
adoption  of  all  conquests  of  scientific  and  technical 
knowledge;  the  training  of  the  toiling  masses  in  the 
spirit  of  sociahsm;  and  also  for  the  purpose  of  uniting 
the  proletariat  with  the  poor  rural  classes  in  their 
struggle  with  capitalism, — it  is  necessary  to  change 
the  individuaUstic  form  of  land-operation  from  the 
individuahstic  to  the  communistic.  Large  Soviet 
homesteads,  conomunes,  cooperative  forms  of  culti- 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         271 

vation  and  other  modes  of  communistic  utilization 
of  the  land,  are  the  best  methods  of  attaining  this 
goal.  Therefore,  all  forms  of  individuaUstic  use  of 
land  must  be  looked  upon  as  old  and  transitory." 
In  the  afore-mentioned  speech  Lenine  said : 
''The  policy  of  the  Soviets  in  agriculture  is  the 
introduction  of  communism  all  over  the  country. 
In  this  direction  they  are  working  systematically. 
For  this  purpose  the  Soviets  are  organizing  land 
communes  under  their  own  management.  To  this 
end  are  made  provisions  that  the  priority  of  use  of 
land  belongs  to  the  state,  then  to  the  pubhc  organi- 
zations, next  to  agricultural  communes.  These 
provisions  are  necessary  for  the  transition  to  com- 
plete communism." 

This  being  the  aim  of  the  Bolsheviki  the  question 
arises  how  successful  have  they  been  in  reaUzing  it? 
The  Bolsheviki,  of  course,  will  lu-ge  that  the  inaugura- 
tion of  any  new  land  regime  in  such  a  vast  country  as 
Russia,  with  nearly  eighty  per  cent  of  the  people 
actually  deriving  their  living  wholly  or  in  part  from 
the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  with  a  backward  agri- 
cultural technique  and  a  backward  industrial  system, 
with  an  ancient  and  very  largely  shattered  trans- 
portation system,  and  in  the  absence  of  a  sufficient 
number  of  agricultural  experts  and  engineers  indis- 
pensable to  an  equitable  distribution  of  land  in  any 
form,  is  a  process  that  requires  years  for  its  consum- 


272    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

mation.  So  that  it  would  hardly  be  lair,  they  would 
say,  to  judge  the  appHcation  and  the  working  of  the 
new  land  law  at  this  time,  especially  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  owing  to  efforts  on  the  part  of  native  factions 
and  foreign  governments  to  overthrow  the  existing 
govermiient  by  force  of  arms,  the  Soviets  have  been 
obhged  to  divert  a  major  portion  of  their  talent  and 
resources  to  combating  the  opposition,  and  have 
thereby  been  prevented  from  centering  their  energies 
on  the  solution  of  their  internal  problems.  All 
of  which  is  tnie,  and  in  an  impartial  appraisal  of 
the  Bolsheviki  land-system,  allowance  must  be  made 
for  these  conditions.  Still,  from  all  that  the  Bolshe- 
viki have  already  done  in  the  effort  to  establish  a  new 
agricultural  regime  in  Russia  during  their  two  years 
of  rule,  it  is  possible  to  judge  as  to  how  the  peasant 
reacts  toward  the  principle  of  communism  they  wish 
him  to  adopt.  This  after  all  is  the  crux  of  the  matter. 
Theory  or  no  theory,  logic  or  no  logic,  the  essential 
factor  to  be  considered  is  how  these  fit  into  the 
realities  of  life. 

Now,  as  already  pointed  out  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
conmiunal  form  of  land-ownership  has  prevailed 
among  a  vast  majority  of  the  Russian  peasantry  for 
centuries.  But  the  communism  to  which  the  peasant 
has  been  accustomed — that  is  the  equitable  periodic 
redistribution  of  the  land — is  an  entirely  different 
affair  from  the  communism  the  Bolsheviki  aspire  to 


THE  BOLSHEVIKI  AND  THE  PEASANT         27^! 

translate  into  a  reality.  Under  the  old  system  the 
peasant  could  do  what  he  pleased  with  his  stock, 
implements  and  crops.  The  land  belonged  to  the 
commune,  but  the  mouzhik  worked  it  as  his  private 
property  and  gathered  and  disposed  of  his  crops  as 
he  chose.  Under  the  proposed  Bolshevist  land- 
regime  all  work  the  land  in  common;  from  the  head 
agronome  to  the  commonest  laborer,  all  are  members 
of  the  self-governing  cooperative  commune;  there  is 
no  employer  and  no  employee;  class  distinctions  de- 
rived from  the  possession  of  property  do  not  exist;  the 
crops  are  divided  among  all  members  of  the  commune. 
This  is  something  entirely  new  to  the  peasant.  It 
is  in  flat  contradiction  to  the  system  of  land-owner- 
ship to  which  he  has  been  accustomed.  It  demands 
complete  divorce  from  the  institution  of  private 
property  in  every  form.  Now  whenever  we  propose 
a  new  principle  or  new  method  of  political,  social  or 
economic  readjustment,  those  to  be  affected  by  it, 
before  consenting  to  its  apphcation,  quite  naturally 
want  proof,  concrete  and  indisputable,  that  the  new 
way  v/ill  prove  more  desirable  and  profitable  to 
them  than  did  the  old  one.  The  Bolsheviki,  of 
course,  could  offer  no  such  proof,  for  their  scheme  of 
communizing  the  land  had  never  been  tried  on  a 
large  scale.  All  they  could  do  was  to  offer  theo- 
retical explanations,  arguments,  to  seek  to  persuade 
the  peasant  with  words  into  an  adoption  of  their 


274    THE  RUSSIAN  PEAS.\NT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

program,  and  the  peasant  is  too  practical  a  person 
to  trust  in  words  only,  especially  when  he  is  urged 
to  make  as  complete  a  departure  from  established 
usage  as  communization  of  land  would  involve. 
Not  even  the  promise  of  the  Bolsheviki  to  extend 
generous  help  to  the  communes,  could  tempt  the 
peasant  into  an  acquiescence  in  their  proposed 
land-system.  The  peasant  insists  upon  conduct- 
ing his  own  agricultural  economy  independently. 
The  plot  of  land  he  cultivates  he  regards  as  his 
individual  possession,  regardless  of  what  the  Bol- 
shevist law  may  proclaim  it  to  be.  Such  has  been 
the  hostility  of  the  peasant  to  comanmiization  of 
land  that  the  Bolsheviki  have  been  obliged  to 
abandon  the  plan  of  coercing  the  peasant  into  its 
adoption.  In  a  letter  to  the  sredniaki,  that  is, 
the  peasants  having  a  household  and  small  farm  of 
their  own,  the  rural  element  that  has  been  most 
hostile  to  communism,  Trotzky  wrote: 

"The  Soviet  power  does  not  either  force  or  intend 
to  force  the  peassLnt-sredniaki  to  accept  the  com- 
mmiistic  system  of  land  economy." 

True,  the  Bolsheviki  have  organized  many  com- 
munes. Between  April  1st  and  November  1st,  1919, 
they  made  an  especially  vigorous  effort  to  communize 
land  and  brought  the  total  number  of  established 
communes  to  two  thousand,  with  a  population  of 
170,000  and  an  area  of  075,000  acres.     But  it  is 


THE  BOLSHEVIK!  AND  THE  PEASANT         275 

significant  to  note  that  only  landless  and  poor 
peasants  have  agreed  to  join  the  communes.  The 
peasant  with  an  independent  holding  is  unqualifiedly 
opposed  to  the  experiment.  So  that  at  present  the 
agricultural  system  in  vogue  in  Russia  is  that  of 
small  landholders — which  is  entirely  out  of  harmony 
with  the  fundamental  aim  of  the  Bolsheviki  to 
abolish  practically  all  forms  of  private  property  and 
to  kill  even  the  desire  for  its  existence. 

The  division  of  the  land,  or  that  part  which  has 
not  been  taken  over  by  the  Soviets  for  communal 
and  other  experimental  purposes,  naturally  proved 
to  be  a  tremendously  difficult  task.  In  some  portions 
of  Russia,  chiefly  in  the  south  and  far  north,  it  has 
not  yet  even  been  fully  effected.  The  chief  difficulty 
lay  in  the  fact  that  in  many  villages  the  richer  peas- 
ants gained  control  of  the  Land  Committees  and 
subordinated  their  efforts  to  personal  aggrandize- 
ment. Says  V.  Karpinsky  in  his  review  of  the 
working  of  the  Bolsheviki  land-law:  ''During  the 
time  of  the  expropriation  of  the  land-owners  the 
poor  peasantry  is  invariably  remaining  in  the  back- 
ground. The  hon's  share  usually  falls  into  the  hands 
of  the  powerful  peasant."  That  naturally  roused 
considerable  discontent  among  the  shghted  element 
in  the  village.  Of  course  if  there  had  been  a  powerful 
state  organization  in  existence,  feared  if  not  respected 
by  all  classes  in  the  village,  the  attempts  at  personal 


276    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

gain  at  the  expense  of  one's  neighbor,  would  doubt- 
less have  been  nipped  at  the  earliest  period  of  its 
manifestation.  But  there  was  no  such  state  organ- 
ization, and  none  could  be  launched  and  intrenched 
within  a  short  period  of  time.  In  every  volost,  in 
every  village,  the  local  Committee  was  practically 
sovereign  and  was,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  ex- 
ercise unchallenged  jm'isdiction  in  the  matter  of 
redistribution  of  land.  Under  such  circumstances 
it  was  often  easy  for  the  richer  peasant  to  swing  a 
preponderance  of  advantage  to  himself. 

The  poorer  peasant,  however,  did  not  hesitate  to 
fight  against  his  richer  neighbor,  when  the  latter 
managed  to  retain  for  himself  an  imdue  proportion 
of  land,  and  often  land  that  was  once  divided  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  richer  peasant  had  to  be  redistrib- 
uted. To  strip  the  richer  peasant  of  his  power  in 
every  way,  the  Bolsheviki  introduced  the  class 
struggle  in  the  village.  They  organized  so-called 
pauper's  committees  that  were  to  combat  the  well- 
to-do  peasant  by  means  of  direct  action.  This  led 
to  such  serious  disturbances,  that  the  Bolshe\'iki 
felt  obhged  to  abandon  the  class  struggle  and  the 
pauper's  committees,  and  to  allow  matters  in  the 
village  to  adjust  themselves  through  the  collective 
effort  of  the  peasants  themselves. 

The  experiences  of  the  Bolsheviki  with  the  peasant 
are  full  of  significance  as  to  the  character  of  the 


THE  B0LSHE\1KI  AND  THE  PEASANT         277 

peasant  and  the  possible  future  course  of  Russian 
history.  They  demonstrate  that  the  peasant  can 
neither  be  flattered  nor  persuaded  nor  coerced  into 
adopting  plans  which  he  deems  inimical  to  his  wel- 
fare. He  is  determined  to  obey  his  own  understand- 
ing of  what  his  problem  is,  and  how  it  can  be  solved. 
He  accepts  leadership,  but  follows  it  only  in  so  far 
as  the  aims  and  methods  proposed  to  him  are  in  his 
judgment  compatible  with  his  best  interests.  Sec- 
ondly, the  peasant  is  staunchly  opposed  to  com- 
munism. With  very  few  exceptions  he  insists  upon 
individual  proprietorship.  The  question  arises,  how 
can  Bolshevism  ever  become  a  reality  in  Russia  with 
the  bulk  of  the  people  opposed  to  the  basic  principle 
of  its  philosophy?  If  Russia  is  to  be  a  country  of 
small  landholders,  if  the  peasant  should  adhere  to 
his  present  insistence  upon  individual  ownership  of 
land,  if  with  the  aid  of  modem  machmery  and  modern 
methods  of  tillage  he  should  increase  the  fertility  of 
his  soil,  grow  bigger  crops,  enjoy  greater  profits,  accu- 
mulate property,  is  he  not  likely  in  the  future  to  be 
even  more  of  a  sobstvennik,  a  devotee  of  private  prop- 
erty, than  he  is  now?  Fm*thermore,  in  a  country 
which  is  so  overwhelmingly  agricultural,  can  commu- 
nism in  industry  exist  side  by  side  with  individuaUsm 
in  agriculture?  It  is  precisely  because  they  do  not  be- 
lieve these  things  possible,  that  many  Russian  social- 
ists have  been  opposed  to  the  Bolshevist  program. 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM 

Whatever  the  form  of  the  future  Russian  govern- 
ment, one  thing  is  certain,  the  landlords  will  never 
again  get  control  of  the  land  they  have  lost.  Perhaps 
in  the  distant  future  a  new  army  of  big  landholders, 
individuals  or  syndicates,  will  spring  into  existence. 
That  depends  upon  the  ultimate  mode  of  Ri^ssia's 
economic  development.  The  former  landed-aristoc- 
racy, however,  is  done  away  with  forever.  Their 
influence  and  their  privileges,  like  the  Czar  that  pro- 
tected them,  are  driven  away  for  all  time.  Even  if  a 
monarchist  government  or  military  dictatorship 
should  by  chance  happen  to  leap  into  power  for  a 
time,  it  cannot  with  the  best  of  intentions,  give  back 
to  the  old  aristocracy  the  land  that  the  Revolution 
has  torn  away  from  them.  At  best  it  can  offer  them 
a  small  indemnity.  There  is  only  one  way  in  which 
they  can  regain  their  estates,  and  that  is  to  kill  the 
peasantry,  and  there  are  over  one  hundred  miUion 
peasants  to  be  killed. 

As  to  the  form  of  land  ownership  in  Russia  it  is 
safe  to  predict  that  for  a  long,  long  time  to  come  it 
will  be  on  the  basis  of  private  proprietorship.    Says 


THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM        279 

V.  Karpinsky,  a  Bolshevist  writer,  in  his  review  of  the 
working  of  the  Bolshevist  agrarian  pohcies  during 
the  first  year  of  their  operation:  ''How  soon  the 
sociahzation  of  land  will  become  universal  all  over 
Russia,  depends  first  upon  the  sentiment  of  the 
people  of  the  country  with  respect  to  sociahzation, 
and  secondly  on  the  possibility  of  the  agricultural 
communes,  which  are  in  a  minority,  to  convince  the 
majority  of  private  owners  of  land,  of  the  practica- 
bihty  and  greater  profitableness  of  communistic 
agricultural  labor."  In  other  words,  as  already 
intimated  in  the  preceding  chapter,  only  when  it 
can  be  demonstrated  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of 
the  peasant,  not  in  argument  but  in  achievement, 
that  he  will  derive  greater  personal  gain  from  a  com- 
munal system  of  land  ownership,  only  then  can  it  be 
expected  that  he  will  as  a  matter  of  sheer  self-interest 
accept  agricultural  communism.    And  can  any  one 

• 

foretell  first,  whether  such  an  achievement  is  possible, 
and  secondly  how  long  a  period  will  have  to  elapse  be- 
fore it  can  be  made  universal  in  Russia?  Until  then 
Russia  will  remain  a  country  of  small  landholders. 

Of  course  a  certain  amount  of  communism  will 
always  prevail  among  the  Russian  peasantry,  be- 
cause of  certain  peculiar  conditions  that  make  com- 
munism advantageous.  Pastures,  woodlots,  where- 
ever  they  are  scanty,  will  be  owned  in  common,  as 
has  been  the  case  hitherto  in  a  large  part  of  Russia. 


280    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Agricultural  machinery  will  be  also  owned  in  part- 
nership, for  the  simple  reason  that  the  average 
peasant  is  too  poor  to  make  an  investment  in  a  com- 
plete set  of  necessaiy  farm-tools.  And  besides,  it 
would  not  pay  him  to  make  such  an  investment, 
because  the  average  size  of  the  peasant  farm  is 
bound  to  be  small — too  small  to  wan'ant  the  posses- 
sion of  full  mechanical  and  technical  equipment. 
Two  or  three  mowing  machines,  one  thrashing 
machine,  one  tractor,  will  suffice  for  the  ordinary 
village  of  one  hundred  inhabitants.  The  land,  too, 
all  of  it,  will  in  certain  sections  be  owned  in  common 
as  formerly,  but  operated  separately.  Then  through 
the  remarkable  spread  of  the  cooperative  societies 
in  the  Russian  village,  sale  and  piu-chase  of  grain, 
produce  and  machinery  will  be  carried  on  collectively. 
In  other  words,  communism  will  prevail  among  the 
peasantry  to  the  extent  that  the  peasant  will  find  it 
profitable.  SeK-interest  and  only  self-interest,  is  the 
peasant's  daily  guide  in  his  economic  hfe  as  much  as 
in  his  political  predilections. 

However,  the  peasant  now  has  the  land,  not  all 
of  it  and  in  places  still  improperly  distributed,  but 
it  will  remain  his  ultimately  regardless  of  any  pohti- 
cal  changes  that  may  come.  Incidentally  it  must  be 
pointed  out  that  though  the  Bolsheviki  were  the 
first  to  legahze  the  confiscation  of  the  large  estates, 
they  hardly  deserve  the  credit  for  giving  the  land  to 


THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM        281 

the  mouzhik.  Decree  or  no  decree  the  land  was 
destined  to  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  peasant.  The 
peasant  was  seizing  it  by  force  of  arms.  The  Bol- 
sheviki  merely  legalized,  modified  and  strove  to 
direct  a  process  that  had  already  set  in  on  a  large 
scale.  Considering  the  cn-cumstances  that  pre- 
vailed in  Russia  no  government  in  the  world  could 
have  prevented  the  peasantry  from  helping  them- 
selves to  the  land.  To  have  tried  to  suppress  the 
efforts  of  the  peasant  in  that  direction,  as  Kerensky 
and  his  Minister  of  Interior,  A^rxentiev,  had  tried, 
was  like  putting  one's  shoulder  to  a  dam  to  stop  the 
flood  from  bursting  through. 

But  the  allotment  of  non-peasant  lands  to  the 
mouzhik  cannot  solve  the  Russian  agrarian  crisis. 
It  is  only  the  first  radical  step  toward  its  correct 
solution.  The  peasant  in  his  ignorance  had  always 
imagined,  that  should  he  come  into  control  of  the 
pomieshtchiks  and  other  estates,  which  loomed  so 
large  to  him  individually,  all  his  troubles  would  come 
to  an  end.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  not  nearly 
enough  land  in  Russia  to  satisfy  all  peasants.  At 
most  there  are  about  fifty  million  dessyatins  addi- 
tional land  available  for  tillage  now,  and  there  are 
about  sixteen  million  peasant  families,  about  three- 
fourths  of  whom  are  either  possessed  of  tiny  allot- 
ments or  are  entirely  landless.  Of  course,  there  are 
swamps  to  be  drained,  forests  to  be  cleared,  deserts 


282    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  be  irrigated — Russia  is  after  all  so  enormous  in 
size — but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  there  are  new 
generations  to  be  taken  care  of.  The  annual  in- 
crement in  the  peasant  population  is  two  milHon 
persons,  and  at  best  the  processes  of  preparing  new 
land  for  settlement,  cannot  any  more  than  make 
ready  sufficient  ground  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
new  generation  of  farmers. 

The  final  solution  of  the  agrarian  crisis  in  Russia, 
is  in  a  large  measure  woven  in  with  the  final  up- 
building of  the  general  economic  organism  of  the 
country.  Agrarian  matters  constitute  a  vital  part 
of  this  organism,  and  like  any  vital  part  of  a  living 
body,  its  fortunes  are  inextricably  interwoven  with 
the  well-being  of  the  entire  organism.  That  this  is 
so  can  be  gleaned  from  the  circumstance,  that  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  the  poignancy  of  the  agrarian 
crisis  in  Russia  is  the  fact  that  Russian  industry  is 
so  backward,  that  it  can  absorb  only  a  very  small 
percentage  of  the  surplus  population  in  the  village. 
Nearly  eighty  per  cent  of  the  people  in  Russia  are 
engaged  in  agriculture,  entirely  too  large  a  number  for 
the  amount  of  available  land,  though  this  is  enor- 
mous. Room  has  to  be  provided  for  the  exodus  of 
the  siuplus  ''hands"  in  the  village,  so  as  to  reheve 
there  the  pressure  of  congestion,  and  this  is  en- 
tirely dependent  upon  the  process  of  industrial 
development  in  the  country. 


THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM        283 

There  are,  nevertheless,  a  number  of  specific 
measures  that  can  and  must  soon  be  launched  in 
order  to  retrieve  the  peasant  from  his  economic 
misery,  and  without  the  adoption  of  which  he  never 
can  rise  to  a  substantially  higher  economic  level. 
Since  the  amount  of  available  land  is  too  small  to 
enable  each  family  to  possess  itself  of  all  it  can  till, 
it  is  obvious  that  efforts  must  be  exerted  to  bring  to 
the  peasant  the  opportunity  of  making  the  most  of 
what  he  has,  and  the  first  thing  to  be  done  in  that 
direction  is  to  improve  his  methods  of  tillage  so  as 
to  enlarge  his  productivity. 

One  essential  requisite  to  promote  productivity  is 
to  alter  the  land  arrangements  that  have  been  in 
vogue  in  the  Russian  village  since  days  irmnemorial. 
The  long  strip-system  involves  not  only  a  waste  of 
land  in  the  furrows  and  ridges  that  separate  one 
strip  from  the  other,  but  also  a  precious  waste  of 
time  and  human  as  well  as  animal  energy,  caused 
by  the  necessity  to  travel  from  one  strip  to  another. 
Whether  the  peasant  has  a  homestead  like  the 
American  farmer  with  his  land  around  his  buildings, 
or  whether  he  continues  to  live  in  the  village  with  his 
land  lying  outside,  his  allotment  should  consist  of 
one  contiguous  field,  or  at  least  as  nearly  contiguous 
as  circumstances  shall  permit.  Then  he  can  move 
from  one  field  to  another,  from  one  crop  to  another, 
now  with  this  tool  and  now  with  that,  without  having 


284    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  waste  precious  time  and  energy.  Likewise  the 
three-field  system  needs  to  be  eliminated,  and  in  its 
place  a  proper  scientific  rotation  of  crops  introduced, 
so  as  to  enable  the  peasant  to  use  all  the  land  all  the 
time  instead  of  having  a  thu'd  of  it  lie  fallow  every 
year,  as  has  hitherto  been  the  case. 

The  greatest  need  of  the  peasant,  however,  is 
agricultui'al  machinery.  He  cannot  be  expected  to 
produce  bountiful  crops  with  the  lumbering  dilapi- 
dated implements  he  has  been  accustomed  to  using. 
In  1910,  out  of  14.6  million  plows,  in  peasant  Rus- 
sia, 6.5  miUion  were  sokhas — ^made  partially  or  wholly 
of  wood — and  0.8  of  a  million  were  kosuli,  and  only  7.3 
miUion  were  real  plows,  most  of  them,  however,  of  the 
light  type;  and  out  of  18  million  harrows,  5  million 
were  entirely  of  wood,  12  milhon  of  wooden  frames 
and  iron  pecks,  and  only  one  iniUion  real  drags,  but 
there  were  scarcely  any  disks,  such  as  are  common  on 
ever}'-  American  farm.  It  is  obvious  that  with  such 
tools  the  most  intelligent  and  industrious  mouzhik  can- 
not hope  to  derive  large  yields  from  the  soil.  The  first 
essential  requisite  in  good  farming  is  proper  plowing 
and  proper  dragging — the  breaking  up  of  the  lumps 
and  the  smoothing  of  the  surface  so  as  to  make  a 
good  seed-bed.  Anyone  with  any  experience  on  an 
American  farm  knows  with  what  care  and  dihgence 
the  American  farmer  prepares  his  seed-bed.  *'It 
is  one-half  of  the  crop,  my  boy,"  said  an  old  New 


THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM        285 

York  farmer  once  to  the  writer  in  making  him  drag 
over  a  piece  of  corn-land,  which  he  had  thought  was 
fit  for  planting. 

The  peasant  must  dispense  with  his  wooden  plows, 
wooden  harrows,  his  flails  and  his  sowing  cribs.  He 
must  stop  sowing  his  grain  broadcast  by  hand  with- 
out covering  it  up  well,  so  that  crows  can  feed  on  it 
and  winds  and  storms  play  with  it.  He  must  drill 
in  his  grain,  so  as  to  distribute  it  uniformly  over  the 
land,  and  cover  it  up  beyond  the  reach  of  bird  and 
wind.  These  things  he  must  do,  and  many  others 
which  experience  has  proven  to  be  indispensable  to 
profitable  farming. 

Another  gi-eat  need  is  a  system  of  agricultural 
schools,  experiment  stations,  agricultural  confer- 
ences such  as  all  of  our  agTicultural  colleges  and 
schools  are  periodically  conducting,  and  also  frequent 
lectures  on  various  appropriate  phases  of  farming. 
After  all,  though  a  farmer  since  days  immemorial, 
the  peasant  knows  little  of  modem  methods  of  til- 
lage. The  needed  information  must  be  imparted  to 
him  in  some  manner  comprehensible  to  him.  An 
institution  similar  to  that  of  the  county  agent  so 
imiversal  in  our  western  states,  that  is,  an  expert  in 
a  certain  locahty  ready  to  instruct,  encourage  and 
guide  him  in  advanced  methods  of  farming,  would  be 
of  invaluable  aid  to  the  peasant.  It  is  encom-aging  to 
note  the  efforts  of  the  cooperatives  in  this  direction. 


286    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

To  make  it  possible  for  the  peasant  to  acquire  new 
implements  it  will  be  necessary  to  extend  financial 
aid  to  him.  A  sj^stem  of  long-term  credits  upon 
moderate  rates,  is  one  of  the  first  requisites.  Then 
the  system  of  taxation  under  whatever  form  of  gov- 
ernment, must  be  so  regulated,  as  not  to  press  too 
heavily  upon  the  mouzhik  as  was  the  case  under  the 
old  regime.  The  fact  is  that  the  peasant,  having  be- 
come quite  conscious  of  his  powers,  will  never  con- 
sent to  the  payment  of  exorbitant  taxes.  The  ex- 
periences of  all  the  governments  since  the  overthrow 
of  the  Czar  from  the  Cadets  to  the  Bolsheviki,  have 
demonstrated  how  reluctant  he  is  to  pay  a  fee  to 
the  government.  And  because  of  that  the  problem 
of  taxation  is  destined  to  be  a  dehcate  issue,  and  the 
easiest  way  to  dispose  of  it,  is  to  aboHsh  insomuch 
as  is  possible  all  indirect  taxation  and  institute  a 
graduated  income  and  inheritance  tax.  All  political 
parties  favor  such  a  tax.  This  will  not  only  keep 
the  peasant  pacified,  but  will  offer  him  the  oppor- 
tunity to  divert  his  income  to  necessary  agricultural 
improvements,  upon  which  his  future  welfare  so 
largely  depends. 

Another  vital  matter  in  connection  with  the  finan- 
cial position  of  the  peasant  is  the  marketing  of  his 
produce,  and  the  first  essential  in  enabling  him  to 
receive  the  most  for  his  goods,  is  to  prevent  the  re- 
currence of  a  preferential  tariff  treaty,  such  as  Ger- 


THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM        287 

many  wrung  out  from  the  Czar  in  1904.  Russia,  as  is 
known,  has  been  a  great  grain-exporting  nation.  It 
is  chiefly  by  means  of  grain  and  other  raw  materials, 
that  she  has  been  able  to  pay  for  her  imports  and  to 
meet  the  interest  on  her  national  loans.  During 
the  five  years  prior  to  the  war  Russia  exported  24 
per  cent  of  her  wheat,  37  per  cent  of  her  barley,  8 
per  cent  of  her  oats,  and  3  per  cent  of  her  rye.  A 
full  third  of  this  grain  was  shipped  to  Germany,  and 
according  to  the  aforementioned  treaty,  while  Ger- 
man finished  products  and  certain  raw  materials  were 
received  free  of  duty  or  at  a  small  tariff  in  Russia,  on 
Russian  grain  exported  to  Germany  a  heavy  custom 
tax  was  levied  by  the  German  government,  namely, 
42  kopecks  on  a  'pcmd  of  wheat,  38  kopecks  on  a  'poud 
of  rye  and  oats,  23  kopecks  on  a  'poud  of  Indian  com 
and  10  kopecks  on  a  poud  of  barley.  The  reason  for 
the  lower  rates  on  corn  and  barley  was  because  these 
grains  were  indispensable  to  German  stock-raising. 
With  such  heavy  duties  on  grain,  the  chief  commodity 
that  the  peasant  had  to  sell,  it  was  natural  that  he 
should  be  receiving  extremely  low  prices.  Such  a 
system  of  exchange  would  surely  prove  ruinous  to 
the  Russian  peasantry.  Whatever  the  pressure  of 
outside  nations  who  are  more  or  less  in  control  of  the 
world-market  and  to  whom  Russia  is  greatly  indebted 
jBnancially,  and  whoever  these  nations  may  be, 
whether  England,  France  or  Germany  again,  it  is  to 


288    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

be  hoped  that  no  Russian  government  will  ever 
again  allow  itself  to  be  intimidated  or  cajoled  into 
granting  trade  privileges  and  concessions  such  as 
Germany  had  enjoyed  before  the  war. 

Of  course  the  cooperative  societies  in  Russia, 
which  have  had  such  phenomenal  growth  in  recent 
years,  have  already  done  much  and  will  with  the 
strengthening  of  their  organization  do  much  more  to 
aid  the  peasant  in  the  purchase  of  the  conmiodities 
he  needs,  and  the  marketing  of  the  produce  he 
offers  for  sale.  The  aim  of  these  cooperatives  is  to 
eliminate  the  middleman  and  to  bring  producer  and 
consumer  together  in  all  their  trade  exchanges.  In 
1913,  according  to  N.  P.  Makarov,  1672  cooperatives 
disposed  of  the  grain  of  their  members  to  mills  and 
foreign  buyers  at  a  saving  of  between  10-15  kopecks 
a  j)oud.  According  to  Morozov  the  peasant  pays 
annually  23  milhon  roubles  in  fees  to  middlemen  on 
eggs  alone.  Now  the  cooperatives  market  their  own 
eggs.  The  cooperatives  aim  to  do  all  of  their  own 
buying  and  selhng  not  only  of  grains  but  of  other 
products,  such  as  flax,  vegetables  and  fruits. 

To  facilitate  the  economic  development  of  the 
village  and  the  countiy  in  general  in  every  possible 
way,  it  is  surely  necessary  to  improve  Russia's 
transportation  system.  A.  country  as  large  as  Russia, 
nearly  twice  the  size  of  the  United  States,  has  only 
about  one-fifth  the  railroad  mileage  that  America 


THE  GIST  OF  THE  PEASANT  PROBLEM        289 

has.  Due  to  the  war,  the  Revolution  and  the  AUied 
blockade,  it  has  been  difficult  to  build  new  railroads 
even  for  military  purposes,  and  what  is  worse,  it  has 
been  even  more  difficult  to  obtain  rolHng  stock  so  as 
to  maintain  those  in  operation  in  good  condition. 
From  all  obtainable  reports  the  Russian  railroads 
are  in  a  woeful  condition  at  present,  and,  as  long  as 
such  is  the  situation,  there  can,  of  course,  be  no  rapid 
economic  advance  in  the  country,  particularly  in  the 
village. 

The  situation  is  not  much  better  as  far  as  highways 
are  concerned.  In  Russia  these  are  atrocious.  There 
are  the  chaussee — ^paved  roads,  but  they  are  few  and 
far  between.  The  peasant  has  neither  the  knowledge 
nor  the  means  to  build  good  roads.  He  usually 
fills  up  holes  and  muddy  places  with  brush  and  a 
thick  layer  of  sod.  When  spring  comes,  the  floods 
wash  off  the  sod,  the  roads  turn  into  rivers  of  slush, 
and  are  altogether  impassable  for  weeks  at  a  time. 
The  building  of  paved  highways  is  one  of  the  most 
paramount  needs  of  Russia.  Then  there  are  canals 
to  be  dug.  Russia  has  perhaps  the  finest  navigable 
river  system  in  the  world.  Her  rivers  flow  in  all 
directions,  north  and  south  and  east  and  west.  A 
network  of  canals  to  connect  these  rivers  will  materi- 
ally enlarge  transportation  facihties. 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  division  of  the  land  is 
only  the  beginning  of  the  solution  of  the  Russian 


290    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

agrarian  crisis,  which  can  be  solved  more  or  less 
completely  only  when  Russian  industries  are  largely 
developed.  The  specific  measures,  however,  of  most 
pressing  immediate  importance  are  those  that  have 
to  do  with  the  methods  of  improved  tillage,  the 
increase  in  the  productivity  of  the  soil,  the  profitable 
disposal  of  produce  and  the  introduction  of  new 
lines  and  methods  of  transportation.  To  the  devel- 
opment of  these  measures  Russia  must  now  direct 
her  earnest  attention. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  CO-OPERATIVE  MOVEMENT  AND  THE 
PEASANT 

On  the  fifth  of  November,  1865,  in  an  obscure 
corner  of  the  province  of  Kostroma,  was  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  Russian  cooperative  movement, 
when  a  credit  associations  was  formally  opened. 
Though  the  idea  of  cooperative  enterprise  had 
been  advocated  before  that  time  by  various  Russian 
publicists,  notably  by  Dobrolubov  and  Cherny- 
shevsky,  no  attempt  had  been  made  to  launch  the 
movement,  principally  because  obshtchestvo — society, 
that  is  the  intellectual  classes,  seemed  to  manifest 
no  keen  interest  in  the  project,  and  also  because  the 
government  had  looked  askance  at  any  ventures  of 
the  people  into  independent  social  activities.  On 
the  sixth  of  November,  1865,  the  first  consumer's 
cooperative  organization  was  chartered.  During 
the  following  forty  years,  owing  to  government 
repression  and  the  difficulty  of  communicating 
with  the  peasantry,  the  cooperative  movement 
enjoyed  but  a  slow  growth.  In  1904  there  were  in 
all  2000  societies  counting  700,000  members.  Only 
after  the  Revolution  of  1905,  when  the  so-called 
"perelom"  came,  that  is,  the  break  in  the  attitude 


292    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

toward  the  old  order  and  the  old  ways  of  thinking  and 
living,  when  new  energies  were  unleashed  and  new 
social  forces  swam  to  the  surface  of  Russian  hfe, 
only  then  did  the  cooperative  movement  receive 
a  mighty  impetus,  and  thousands  of  new  societies 
leapt  into  existence  all  over  Russia,  both  European 
and  Asiatic.  On  the  eve  of  the  world- war  in  1914, 
the  number  of  cooperative  organizations  had  in- 
creased to  33,000  and  their  membership  to  twelve 
millions.  During  the  last  five  years,  despite  war  and 
revolution,  or  rather,  because  of  it,  the  cooperative 
movement  continued  its  phenomenal  gi'owth.  In 
1918  no  less  than  twenty  million  householders  were 
affihated  with  it,  that  means  about  eighty  million 
people  were  affected  in  one  way  or  another  by  its 
various  activities.  The  following  table  shows  the 
comparative  spread  of  the  cooperative  societies  in 
various  countries: 

1865         1874  1917 


Russia 

2 

353 

39,753 

England 

800 

1,500 

12,000 

Germany- 

200 

980 

10,000 

France 

1 

10,000 

Japan 

1 

10,000 

Italy 

2 

1,913 

9,000 

Denmark 

1,574 

849 
500 

Belgium 

Norway 

596 

United  States 

1,000 

CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  293 

That  the  cooperative  movement  should  meet  with 
such  marvelous  success  in  Russia,  seems  surprising. 
And  yet  there  is  nothing  strange  in  the  phenomenon. 
It  is  a  thoroughly  natural  outcome  of  conditions 
which  were  particularly  favorable  to  the  development 
of  cooperative  practice.  For  one  thing  the  Russians 
since  days  immemorial  have  been  given  to  one  form 
or  another  of  communal  enterprise.  In  the  mir  the 
peasant  learned  to  cooperate  with  his  neighbors  in 
various  undertakings,  and  in  those  sections  where 
the  mir  had  not  struck  root,  as  in  Ukraine,  he  also 
had  occasion  to  participate  in  numerous  communal 
projects.  In  nearly  all  Russian  villages  even  in 
those  where  individual  ownership  of  land  prevailed, 
there  were  conamunal  pastures,  forests,  used  and 
cared  for  by  all  members  collectively;  certain  com- 
munal buildings  had  to  be  erected,  such  as  churches, 
school-houses,  communal  fences  had  to  be  put  up, 
bridges  laid,  roads  mended.  In  some  villages  there 
was  the  communal  granary,  to  which  each  member 
had  to  donate  a  certain  portion  of  grain  after  he  had 
thrashed  it,  so  that  there  would  be  a  grain  fund, 
from  which  the  destitute  villager  might  borrow  rye 
or  oats  or  wheat  for  house-use  or  for  seed.  In  cer- 
tain other  villages  there  was  the  flax-house,  built 
also  and  kept  up  by  the  community.  There  the 
flax  was  thrashed  and  cleaned  by  all  members  of  the 
village.    Certain  other  villages  operated  wind-mills 


2!)4    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

.  lid  blacksmith  shops  upon  a  communal  basis.  Then 
in  building  houses  or  barns  or  digging  wells,  the 
peasants  always  help  each  other.  In  towns,  cities 
and  industrial  places,  were  the  artels — the  voluntary 
workers'  organizations,  which  undertook  to  do 
various  jobs,  to  load  or  unload  boats,  clear  swamps 
and  forests,  dig  tunnels,  put  up  buildings  or  to  man- 
ufacture certain  goods.  These  artels  were  for  the 
most  part  temporary  organizations  only,  though 
in  some  places  where  there  was  steady  employment, 
they  became  permanent  institutions.  In  the  absence 
of  trade  unions  it  was  the  artels  who  prior  to  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs  and  for  several  decades 
afterwards  had  defended  the  interests  of  the  factory 
workers.  All  these  and  other  similar  activities 
accustomed  the  peasant  and  the  city  worker  to  the 
idea  of  collective  effort,  and  have  thus  prepared 
them  psychologically  for  the  reception  of  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  cooperative  movement  is 
founded. 

The  chief  reason,  however,  for  the  success  of  the 
movement  in  Russia  is  because  the  economic  condi- 
tions of  the  country  favored  its  growth.  The  peasant 
was  a  prey  to  the  kulack  and  the  middleman.  When 
he  needed  a  loan,  he  applied  to  them,  and  in  a  pre- 
ceding chapter  it  has  already  been  pointed  what 
exorbitant  rates  of  interest  they  charged — fifty  and 
an  hundred  per  cent  were  by  no  means  uncommon — 


CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  295 

and  how  in  general  they  sought  to  squeeze  out  of 
their  debtors  under  one  pretext  or  another  various 
fees  and  fines.  Moreover,  if  the  peasant  had  to  buy 
something  he  went  to  the  village  shopkeeper,  who 
charged  extortionate  prices  and  often  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  sell  goods  that  were  unfit  for  use.  In  the 
cities  and  towns,  likewise,  the  petty  shopkeepers  took 
advantage  of  the  worker  and  the  professional  man. 
Perhaps  there  was  no  country  in  the  world  where 
the  merchants  were  given  so  much  to  profiteering 
as  in  Russia.  Consequently,  it  was  natural  that  a 
movement  should  be  inaugurated  to  eliminate  this 
profiteering,  a  task  which  the  cooperatives  had 
undertaken.  Now  if  Russia  had  been  a  highly  devel- 
oped country  commercially,  with  middlemen  com- 
peting against  each  other,  and  numerous  and  power- 
ful enough  to  oppose  enterprises  antagonistic  to 
their  interests,  the  cooperatives  would  have  doubt- 
less encountered  stiff  opposition  in  one  form  or 
another.  But  with  commerce  only  inadequately 
developed,  the  middleman  was  helpless  in  his  fight 
against  the  cooperatives.  When  the  peasant  was  in- 
formed that  he  could  obtain  better  goods  at  a  much 
lower  price  from  a  cooperative  store,  or  that  he  could 
get  cheaper  credit  at  a  cooperative  bank,  he  readily 
responded  to  the  invitation  to  form  such  an  organ- 
ization in  his  village  or  district. 

Another  reason  w^hich  greatly  aided  the  spread  of 


296    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

the  cooperatives  is  their  non-partisan  attitude  toward 
questions,  upon  which  humanity  is  divided.  Mat- 
ters of  poUtics,  rehgion,  class  differences,  they 
have  sought  to  eschew.  Anyone  with  the  proper 
quahfications  is  admitted  to  membership.  Ortho- 
dox or  Protestant  or  Roman  CathoUc,  Cadet, 
Sociahst,  Octobrist,  they  are  all  welcome.  Of  course 
most  of  the  members  and  most  of  the  societies  are  in 
villages,  because  Russia  is  essentially  a  village  na- 
tion, and  the  peasant  more  than  any  other  element 
has  suffered  from  the  backward  and  abnormal 
economic  state  of  the  country.  But  there  are  co- 
operatives of  other  classes,  too,  of  officers  in  the 
army,  and  of  various  civil  officials. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  cooperatives  may  be  divided 
upon  the  basis  of  their  functions  into  four  groups, 
credit,  consumers',  agricultural  and  industrial.  Not 
that  each  group  is  entirely  distinct  from  the  other. 
In  many  ways  their  activities  overlap.  Thus  the 
consumers',  credit,  and  agricultural  societies  often 
sell  and  buy  the  same  things.  Upon  the  whole, 
however,  each  group  seeks  to  confine  itself  to  the 
tasks  that  lie  within  its  own  sphere.  The  consumers' 
cooperatives  buy  and  sell  mainly  foods,  also  wearing 
apparel,  various  house  furnishings,  agricultural 
implements,  books,  school-supplies  and  other  com- 
modities that  are  in  constant  demand.  They  always 
select  goods  of  fine  quality  and  sell  at  extremely  low 


CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  297 

prices.  Members  and  non-members  may  purchase 
from  their  stores.  The  various  credit  societies 
operate  loan  and  savings  departments.  As  a  rule 
they  charge  between  eight  and  twelve  per  cent 
interest  on  advances  they  make,  not  an  exorbitant 
rate  in  Russia,  and  not  much  more  than  sufficient  to 
cover  operating  expenses.  On  saving  deposits 
they  pay  between  six  and  seven  per  cent,  about 
twice  as  much  as  the  old  government  banks  had 
offered.  The  credit  societies  also  accept  orders  from 
members  for  agricultural  machinery  and  sell  this  to 
their  customers  upon  an  installment  basis.  During 
1914,  all  the  credit  societies  in  Russia  loaned  out 
close  to  a  billion  roubles  at  a  tremendous  saving  to 
their  customers. 

The  agricultural  societies  engage  in  a  variety  of 
activities  calculated  to  promote  the  productive 
power  of  both  farm  and  farmer.  They  operate 
experiment  stations,  institute  courses  of  lectures  and 
demonstrations  in  various  phases  of  farming,  and 
encourage  their  patrons  to  introduce  new  methods  of 
tillage  and  new  crops.  They  buy  and  rent  agricul- 
tural machinery,  conduct  repair  shops,  cement,  tile 
and  brick  factories.  These  societies  are  still  in  their 
infancy,  and  on  that  account  have  not  yet  wrought 
a  marked  change  in  Russian  agriculture.  In  view  of 
the  fact,  however,  that  Russian  farming  is  destined 
to  undergo  a  thorough  transformation,  the  agricul- 


298    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

tural  cooperatives  have  an  unprecedented  oppor- 
tunity to  make  themselves  serviceable  to  the  Rus- 
sian peasant. 

The  industrial  artels,  associations  of  artisans  and 
factory  hands,  are  especially  numerous  in  the  north, 
where,  owing  to  the  poor  fertility  of  the  soil,  the 
peasant  has  always  been  dependent,  more  or  less, 
upon  income  from  home  industries.  These  societies 
buy  at  wholesale  their  raw  materials,  and  dispose  of 
their  finished  products  insomuch  as  is  possible  di- 
rectly to  the  consumer.  Their  aim  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  other  cooperatives,  to  eliminate  the  mid- 
dleman in  all  their  transactions.  The  zemstvos  and 
the  other  cooperatives  by  making  loans  to  them  and 
aiding  them  in  the  finding  of  the  proper  market,  have 
been  laj-gely  responsible  for  then-  flourishing  state 
at  the  present  time.  Prior  to  the  war  they  were  in  a 
rather  languishing  condition,  because  they  could  not 
compete  upon  equal  terms  with  factory-made  prod- 
ucts. But  when  many  of  peace-time  industries  had 
been  diverted  into  the  manufacture  of  war-supplies, 
with  a  resultant  shortage  of  the  very  commodities 
the  industrial  artels  were  putting  out,  the  market  was 
open  for  an  unUmited  amount  of  their  wares.  And  as 
the  war  continued  and  the  industrial  machine  of  the 
country  was  breaking  down,  the  demand  for  their 
products  continued  to  increase.  Later  when  the 
Revolution  came,  and  the  productive  machinery  of 


CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  299 

the  nation  was  further  shattered,  they  remained 
practically  the  only  producing  agencies,  whose 
working  capacity  instead  of  slumping,  had  actually 
risen. 

In  fact  the  coming  of  the  war,  the  industrial  dis- 
integration of  the  country  and  the  Revolution, 
opened  wide  the  road  of  opportunity  to  all  coopera- 
tives. Working  hand  in  hand  with  zemstvos  they 
took  contracts  from  the  government  for  grain, 
clothes,  shoes,  hospital  supphes.  They  had  the  ma- 
chinery through  which  they  could  reach  the  millions 
of  peasants  and  gather  from  them  upon  terms  that 
satisfied  them  and  in  a  manner  that  stirred  their 
confidence,  whatever  supplies  they  could  prepare 
for  war  purposes.  They  and  the  zemstvos  and  the 
Municipal  Council  were  in  fact  the  only  organiza- 
tions whose  war-time  transactions  had  not  provoked 
any  adverse  criticism  either  as  to  competency  or 
square  dealing.  During  the  war  they  continued  their 
fight  against  profiteers  with  increased  vigor.  They 
formed  new  societies  all  over  the  country,  and 
the  people  readily  responded  to  their  appeal,  for 
only  through  cooperation  could  relief  be  obtained 
from  extortionate  middlemen,  who  strove  to  comer 
the  market  in  necessary  supplies.  They  also  sought 
to  sustain  the  morale  in  the  villages  by  provid- 
ing proper  facifities  for  the  peasantry  to  keep  in 
touch  with  the  progress  of  the  war  and  world  events 


300    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

in  general.  To  some  extent  they  aided  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  labor,  both  industrial  and  agricultural, 
by  providing  means  for  migration  to  the  places 
where  it  was  needed  most.  They  Ukewise  adminis- 
tered relief  to  families  whose  bread-winners  had 
gone  to  the  army.  They  favored  the  enactment 
of  the  prohibition  law,  and  when  it  went  into  effect 
they  sought  to  provide  healthful  recreation  in 
the  villages  to  take  the  place  of  the  vodka-drinking 
pastimes.  Through  all  these  and  other  similar 
activities  they  continued  to  grow  and  intrench  them- 
selves in  Russian  hfe. 

Now  not  the  least  remarkable  thing  about  these 
cooperatives  is  that  the  local  administrators  in  the 
villages  are  very  largely  peasants.  The  movement 
was  started  by  intellectuals,  and  the  main  leadership 
is  still  very  largely  in  the  hands  of  highly  cultured 
men.  But  in  the  local  branches  the  trustees  and  the 
managers  are  mouzhiks,  elected  by  the  members  of 
the  organization.  Not  a  few  of  these  local  leaders 
are  iUiterate.  But  they  are  men  of  understanding,  of 
keen  business  sense,  high  executive  abiUty,  thor- 
oughly trustworthy  and  industrious.  Of  course  they 
are  aided  by  trained  clerks,  bookkeepers,  salesmen. 
In  fact,  some  of  the  Cooperative  Unions  have  been 
conducting  special  schools  to  train  efficient  workers 
for  their  various  enterprises.  In  Shenyavsky's 
people's  college  in  Moscow  a  number  of  courses  have 


COOPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  301 

been  offered  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  coopera- 
tion. The  cooperatives  have  also  a  press  of  their 
own.    In  1914,  they  pubhshed  thirty  journals. 

During  the  past  twenty  years  the  various  types  of 
cooperatives  have  been  consohdating  into  central 
organizations  or  Unions.  Thus  there  are  the  Credit 
Unions,  Consumers'  Unions,  Agricultural  Unions, 
Industrial  Unions.  The  aim  of  these  central  organs 
is  to  establish  mutual  control  of  all  the  activities  of 
the  various  separate  branches,  and  thereby  ehminate 
waste  of  time,  work  and  expense.  Though  the  old 
government  was  loathe  to  sanction  the  formation  of 
these  Unions,  for  fear  they  might  turn  into  revolu- 
tionary organs,  it  could  not  resist  the  advance  of  the 
cooperatives,  and  finally  granted  charters  for  the 
establishment  of  the  Unions.  The  Moscow  Union  of 
Consumers'  Societies  is  the  central  nerve  of  the 
entire  cooperative  movement.  Founded  in  1898, 
practically  a  pioneer  in  the  field,  with  meager  re- 
sources at  its  command,  under  constant  suspicion  of 
the  government,  it  struggled  along  for  five  years 
until  it  began  to  pubhsh  its  own  journal,  ''The 
Union  of  Consumers,"  and  in  1911,  it  moved  into 
its  own  premises — a  large  building — and  extended 
its  operations  on  such  a  wide  scale,  that  it  began  to 
be  considered  as  the  leading  cooperative  organ  of 
Russia.  In  1908  it  summoned  the  first  Cooperative 
Congress,  at  which  800  delegates  were  present,  and 


302    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

laid  plans  for  further  expansion  and  centralization. 
In  1915  its  volume  of  business  amounted  to  22 
million  roubles,  whereas  during  the  first  eight 
months  of  the  following  year  the  sum  was  more  than 
doubled.  The  Moscow  Union  also  began  to  organ- 
ize producing  agencies,  which,  aside  from  the  artels, 
the  Russian  cooperatives,  unlike  those  in  England, 
had  practically  ignored.  It  opened  an  olive  oil 
establishment,  organized  a  weighing  and  sorting 
house  for  tea  and  coffee.  In  1915  it  acquired  a  con- 
fectionery, later  it  came  into  possession  of  a  match 
and  tobacco  factories,  soap  works,  and  founded  an 
extensive  plant  in  Bessarabia  for  the  drying  of  fruit 
and  vegetables.  In  1916  it  purchased  another  con- 
fectionery, and  organized  a  system  of  large-scale 
flour-milHng  and  a  salting  herring  business  in  Arch- 
angel. All  of  these  enterprises  have  met  with 
success. 

Another  institution  which  tended  to  cement  the 
cooperatives  was  the  People's  Bank  in  Moscow,  the 
financial  center  of  the  cooperative  movement.  It 
entered  upon  its  career  in  a  modest  apartment. 
Outsiders,  especially  financial  experts,  prophesied 
its  speedy  collapse.  Instead,  it  met  with  instan- 
taneous success.  It  started  with  a  capitalization  of 
one  million  roubles,  which  were  obtained  through  the 
sale  of  four  thousand  shares  of  stock,  eighty-five  per 
cent  of  which  was  subscribed  for  by  various  credit 


CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  303 

societies.  In  the  second  year  of  its  existence  it  put 
out  another  issue  of  shares  for  a  similar  amount.  At 
the  end  of  1916  it  had  disposed  of  another  block  of 
stock  of  two  milUon  roubles  and  soon  afterwards  a 
fourth  issue  of  six  million  roubles  was  prepared.  It 
has  thirty-three  branches  all  over  Russia,  and  has 
estabhshed  agencies  in  London  and  New  York. 

Its  aim  is  to  provide  credit  for  various  cooperatives 
at  low  rates  and  in  convenient  form.  It  carries  on 
all  forms  of  ordinary  banking  business,  but  buys  no 
stocks  nor  shares,  and  confines  its  loan  activities 
entirely  to  cooperatives.  Private  individuals  or  firms 
cannot  obtain  credit,  excepting  in  instances  when 
they  act  as  intermediaries  between  cooperative 
societies.  In  addition  to  extending  credit  the  Mos- 
cow Bank  has  also  undertaken  to  make  purchases  for 
the  various  branches  of  the  cooperative  bodies. 
Being  close  to  the  financial  market  of  the  world, 
knowing  thoroughly  the  conditions  of  the  market,  it 
is  in  a  m\ich  better  position  to  make  purchases  than 
are  the  isolated  societies,  who  now  and  then  fell  into 
the  clutches  of  the  monopolists  and  their  agents. 
To  make  the  purchasing  department  of  the  bank 
self-supporting,  a  charge  of  anyw^here  between  one 
and  three  per  cent  is  levied  upon  the  branch  organ- 
izations. The  growth  of  the  Moscow  Bank  can  be 
gauged  from  the  fact,  that  while  the  turnover  for  the 
year  of  1915  was  over  twenty-four  million  roubles, 


804    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

during  the  first  eight  months  of  the  following  year 
it  leapt  to  forty-nine  millions,  and  while  the  deposits 
on  the  first  of  January,  1915,  were  about  four  mil- 
lion roubles,  on  the  same  date  the  following  year 
they  were  ten  millions,  and  on  the  first  of  September, 
1916,  they  mounted  to  twenty-two  millions! 

Particularly  successful  have  been  the  Siberian 
cooperatives,  essentially  because  the  Siberian  peasant 
is,  comparatively  speaking,  in  a  rather  comfortable 
position.  He  has  more  land,  averages  four  cows  per 
household,  and  has  abundant  pasture  for  other  stock. 
The  chief  cooperatives  in  Siberia  are  the  butter-mak- 
ing creameries.  Originally  the  Siberian  farmers 
entered  into  the  cooperative  manufactm'e  of  cheese. 
In  this  they  failed,  mainly  because  they  had  no 
specialist  in  cheese  making  and  the  quahty  of  their 
goods  suffered  in  consequence.  When  they  turned  to 
making  butter,  they  at  once  struck  the  key  to  suc- 
cess. Agents  from  many  European  countries  as  well 
as  Russia  swamped  them  with  orders.  At  first  the 
private  butter-making  shops  got  a  lion's  share  of  the 
business.  But  by  the  rapid  organization  of  artels, 
and  central  unions,  private  enterprise  was  slowly 
eliminated,  until  the  entire  butter-making  industry 
in  Siberia  has  passed  practically  into  the  hands  of  the 
cooperatives.  First  organized  in  1866  there  were  in 
1900  in  Western  Siberia,  32  butter-making  coopera- 
tives, in  1905  the  number  increased  to  347,  in  1910 


CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  305 

to  1337  and  at  present  there  are  over  2000!  In  1908 
the  volume  of  then*  business  amounted  to  two  and  a 
quarter  milUon  roubles  and  in  1916  to  seventy-three 
million  roubles.  Says  Tugan-Baranovsky :  ''It  may 
truly  be  said  that  our  butter  making  cooperatives 
constitute  the  most  brilUant  page  in  the  history  of  our 
cooperative  movement." 

When  the  Bolsheviki  came  into  power  they  at- 
tempted to  nationalize  the  cooperatives,  to  turn  their 
machinery  into  government  agencies,  and  operate 
them  upon  the  principle  of  communism.  To  the 
Bolsheviki  it  appeared  that  the  existence  of  the 
cooperatives  in  Russia  in  the  form  in  which  they 
carried  on  their  transactions,  was  favoring  the  growth 
of  bourgeois  tendencies.  Though  the  cooperatives 
seek  to  eliminate  the  middleman,  they  are  based 
essentially  upon  the  recognition  of  the  principle  of 
private  property.  In  fact  their  efforts  to  improve  the 
economic  condition  of  the  individual  peasant,  by 
enabling  him  to  derive  a  larger  revenue  for  his  prod- 
uce, and  thereby  to  reap  greater  profits  from  his 
land,  only  tends  to  deepen  his  instinct  of  private 
property,  and  thereby  stiffens  his  resistance  to  com- 
munism. But  the  efforts  at  nationalization  of  the 
cooperatives  failed.  Those  organizations  that  had 
been  dissolved  have  been  restored  to  hfe,  and  the 
leaders  that  had  been  under  arrest,  have  been  liber- 
ated.   The  Moscow  Bank  has,  indeed,  been  national- 


306    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ized,  but  though  supervised  by  a  Bolshevist  Com- 
missary its  control  has  remained  virtually  with  the 
former  leaders  of  the  institution.  In  fact  many  new 
cooperatives  have  actually  sprung  into  existence 
during  the  period  of  Bolshevist  rule.  Thus  after 
the  regularly  established  insurance  companies  had 
been  abolished,  the  cooperatives  founded  an  In- 
surance Union,  which  has  not  only  encountered  no 
opposition  from  the  Bolshevist  government  but  has 
actually  received  its  encouragement.  Likewise 
Central  unions  of  fruit  growers,  gardeners  and 
potato  planters,  have  come  into  existence  during 
the  last  two  years. 

Thus  we  observe  that  the  cooperative  movement, 
because  it  is  rooted  essentially  in  the  reahties  of 
Russian  hfe  and  performs  a  function  that  is  highly 
useful  to  its  millions  of  members,  has  safely  weathered 
the  storm  of  social  and  economic  disintegration. 
Whatever  the  future  may  have  in  store  for  Russia, 
even  should  a  new  gust  of  civil  strife  sweep  through 
the  country  and  effect  a  still  fiu'ther  shattering  of  the 
industrial  and  political  institutions,  the  cooperatives 
will  continue  to  function.  Abstaining  as  a  body  from 
partisanship  in  the  internal  social  conflict  and 
holding  itself  together  mainly  because  of  its  ministra- 
tions to  the  vital  needs  of  its  members,  no  govern- 
ment and  no  faction  will  dare  to  molest  it.  Like  a 
rock  in  the  midst  of  a  raging  sea  it  can  defy  the 


CO-OPERATION  AND  THE  PEASANT  307 

destructive  forces  hovering  about,  for  its  rests  upon 
the  foundation  of  sohd  and  unshakable  reaUty.  More 
than  any  other  social  organization  will  the  coopera- 
tives contribute  toward  the  rebuilding  of  the  eco- 
nomic institutions  of  Russia.  Especially  will  the 
peasant  benefit  from  their  aid.  They  will  guide  him 
in  the  proper  pursuance  of  his  daily  tasks  and  will 
seek  to  protect  him  against  the  tricks  and  machina- 
tions of  the  middleman,  both  foreign  and  domestic. 

Incidentally  the  success  of  the  cooperatives  dem- 
onstrates how  quickly  and  whole-heartedly  the 
peasant  rallies  round  an  organization  that  seeks  di- 
rectly to  improve  his  economic  condition.^ 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BOLSHEVISM,  THE  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 
AND  THE  PEASANT 

That  the  American  Democracy — the  broad  masses 
of  the  people — have  a  vital  interest  in  the  Russian 
Revolution,  need  not  be  questioned.  Even  were 
Russia  not  so  intimately  bound  up  with  America's 
new  ventures  into  international  diplomacy  and 
international  trade,  the  sheer  human  aspects  of  the 
Revolution,  its  suddenness,  its  stupendousness,  its 
rapid  shift  from  one  stage  to  another,  its  dramatic 
climaxes,  its  effect  upon  the  thought  of  the  world, 
make  an  irresistible  human  appeal.  There  is  fmiher- 
more  a  genuine  desire  on  the  part  of  the  American 
Democracy  to  help  in  the  happy  solution  of  the 
momentous  problems,  which  the  Russian  Revolution 
has  unleashed.  There  is  also,  to  judge  from  the 
written  and  spoken  utterances  of  representatives  of 
this  Democracy,  a  liu-king  fondness  of  the  peasant 
and  a  profound  sympathy  for  his  struggles  toward 
a  better  hfe.  Only  the  American  Democracy  has 
labored  under  a  maze  of  misconceptions  with  regard 
to  the  peasant  and  on  that  account  has  been  at  a 
loss  to  appreciate  his  position  in  the  Revolution  and 
to  mold  a  pohcy  fitting  this  position. 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    309 

One  thing  is  absolutely  certain,  we  shall  not  be 
prepared  to  help  eradicate  those  features  of  the 
Revolution,  which  may  seem  to  us  imdesirable,  un- 
less we  first  gain  a  correct  comprehensive  and  sym- 
pathetic understanding  of  the  forces  at  play.  Now 
as  far  as  the  peasant  is  concerned,  from  all  that  has 
been  said  in  the  preceding  pages,  certain  deductions 
inevitably  force  themselves  upon  our  mind — deduc- 
tions which  must  constitute  the  raw  material  out  of 
which  to  build  a  definite  steadying  and  sympathetic 
poUcy  toward  the  Russian  Revolution. 

For  one  thing  the  peasant  knows  what  he  wants. 
We  should  make  no  mistake  about  that.  He  is  not 
a  mere  juggling  ball  in  the  hands  of  clever  leaders, 
as  so  many  wTiters  would  have  us  beheve.  A 
study  of  the  evolution  of  political  parties  in  Russia 
bears  eloquent  testimony  to  this  assertion.  Since 
the  earliest  days  of  their  existence  they  have  all  per- 
ceived the  importance  of  the  peasant  following,  and 
they  have  all  striven  to  capture  it.  But  it  was  not  so 
much  they  who  influenced  the  peasant  to  change  his 
conception  of  his  needs  and  problems,  as  he  forc- 
ing them  to  alter  their  attitude  toward  him,  and 
only  the  parties  that  have  come  closest  to  speaking  to 
him  in  terms  of  his  ideas  and  demands,  have  made 
themselves  more  or  less  popular  in  the  village.  Mis- 
led he  has  been,  pitifully,  woefully,  again  and  again, 
by  friend  and  foe,  but  whenever  he  discovered  the 


310    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

divergence  between  himself  and  his  leaders  and 
patrons,  he  has  striven  to  the  best  of  his  abihty  and 
simple  understanding,  to  withdraw  his  support  from 
them,  and  whenever  possible  and  feasible  even  to 
attack  them  violently.  The  bitter  disappointment 
of  the  older  generation  of  Russian  intellectuals,  who 
have  always  dreamed  and  yearned  for  the  day  when 
they  would  lead  the  peasant  to  what  they  regarded 
as  the  land  of  promise  for  him,  and  who  are  now 
either  in  exile  again  in  foreign  lands,  or  else  buried 
in  seclusion  in  the  libraries  and  museums  and  minor 
offices  of  their  native  land,  because  the  peasant 
despite  their  multitude  of  fervent  appeals,  has  re- 
jected their  leadership — this  in  itself  is  proof  that 
the  peasant  has  a  will  of  his  own  and  is  determined 
to  insist  upon  its  fulfillment. 

Another  conclusion  that  is  evident  is  that  the 
peasant  is  actuated  solely  by  self-interest,  which, 
under  the  present  circumstances,  means  a  desire  for 
the  enjoyment  not  of  luxuries,  but  of  the  commonest 
and  most  elementary  necessities.  He  strives  after 
the  chance  to  build  up  a  comfortable  home,  and  to 
place  himself  in  a  position  to  rear  his  family  in  peace 
and  plenty.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  land  prob- 
lem has  always  been  of  most  momentous  importance 
to  him.  He  could  not  conceive  of  a  solution  of  his 
material  crisis  without  the  confiscation  and  the  free 
distribution  of  all  the  big  estates. 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    311 

Still  another  conclusion  that  follows  from  the 
information  presented  in  the  preceding  pages,  is  that 
the  peasant  has  since  the  earhest  days  of  serfdom, 
evinced  a  marked  disposition  now  and  then  to  battle 
vehemently  in  his  own  way  for  the  attainment  of  his 
most  cherished  aim.  The  peasant  is  and  has  been  an 
actual  and  potential  revolutionary,  though  on  the 
whole  he  has  not  been  directly  allied  with  the  revolu- 
tionary movement  of  the  country,  and  has  on  occa- 
sions even  fought  against  the  movement.  True, 
in  the  past  he  seems  to  have  manifested  an  outward 
acquiescence  in  the  repressions  of  the  old  regime. 
That  was  because  of  external  compulsion,  which  he 
in  his  isolation  was  powerless  to  resist.  He  had  no 
mystic  affinities  for  suffering  and  its  amenities,  as  the 
rhapsodic  Stephen  Grahams  have  so  voluminously 
sought  to  convince  us.  One  would  imagine  from  the 
utterances  of  the  apostles  of  holy  Russia  and  the 
other  apologists  of  the  old  regime,  that  the  peasant 
actually  gloried  in  the  experiences  of  pain,  that  this 
was  indispensable  to  his  spiritual  self-satisfaction. 
Were  this  true  he  should  have  with  all  his  might 
defended  the  former  autocracy,  for  whatever  else 
Czarism  may  or  may  not  be  accused  of,  its  bit- 
terest enemies  will  gladly  concede  that  it  never 
begrudged  affliction  to  the  peasant.  And  yet  some- 
how there  does  not  seem  to  be  the  shghtest  de- 
sire on  the  part  of  the  mouzhik  to  resurrect  the 


312    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

power  of  the  Czar,  the  Grand  Dukes  and  the  land- 
lords. 

The  economic  self-interest  of  the  peasant  and  the 
masses  in  general,  and  all  that  the  term  imphes,  is 
the  real  and  only  key  to  the  Russian  Revolution. 
As  already  explained  at  considerable  length  the  peas- 
ant is  not  a  pohtical  theorist.  He  is  not  a  Bolshevik 
nor  an  anti-Bolshevik,  not  a  Menshevik  nor  an  anti- 
Menshevik,  not  a  Social-Revolutionary,  nor  an 
anti-Social-Revolutionary,  not  a  Cadet  nor  an  anti- 
Cadet.  He  has  no  political  bias  to  satisfy  and  no 
pohtical  traditions  to  uphold.  He  cares  not  which 
is  the  party  in  power,  excepting  that  it  is  certain 
that  he  would  never  again  support  a  Czaristic  or  any 
other  form  of  government,  which  he  might  deem 
inimical  to  his  welfare.  It  may  appear  a  truism,  but 
it  must  be  emphasized  again,  that  the  peasant  is 
first  and  foremost  absorbed  in  his  immediate  welfare 
and  the  quickest  means  of  insuring  it  regardless  of 
the  nature  of  this  means.  Lacking  a  crystallized 
political  consciousness,  lacking  pohtical  experience, 
distrustful  of  authority  from  above,  for  centuries  in 
the  grind  of  ruthless  poverty,  it  would  be  strange, 
indeed,  if  he  had  thought  and  acted  otherwise. 

The  outside  world,  however,  has  exhibited  a 
lamentable  and  persistent  incapacity  to  appreciate 
this  fundamental  fact  of  the  Russian  Revolution. 
The  Allied  governments  especially  have  approached 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    313 

the  Revolution  from  the  poHtical  and  not  from  the 
economic  angle,  that  is,  not  from  the  angle  of  the 
immediate  cause  and  province  of  the  Revolution. 
They  have  either  not  attempted  or  because  of  their 
legaHstic  approach  to  world  problems  have  not  been 
able  to  view  this  epochal  event  through  the  eyes  of 
those  who  have  effected  it  and  whom  it  concerns  most 
vitally.  Directly  and  indirectly  they  have  fostered 
movements  which  have  promised  to  erect  in  Russia  a 
political  organism  satisfactory  and  acceptable  to 
them.  They  have  been  seeking  a  political  solution 
of  the  Russian  problem,  whereas  the  Russian  masses, 
particularly  the  peasant,  think  and  feel  and  act 
fundamentally  in  terms  of  economic  promise  and 
economic  gain.  A  mere  glance  at  the  outstanding 
events  of  Russian  history  during  the  last  five  years 
should  convince  the  impartial  observer  that  the 
Russian  problem  is  essentially  economic  in  na- 
ture. It  was  the  breakdown  of  the  economic  ma- 
chinery that  brought  defeat  to  the  Russian  armies, 
that  precipitated  the  Revolution,  that  dragged 
Kerensky  to  his  doom,  and  that  enabled  the  Bol- 
sheviki  by  promising  to  the  masses  land,  bread, 
peace  and  control  of  factories,  to  gain  ascendancy 
to  power. 

Consequently  it  would  seem  that  the  greatest 
contribution  the  outside  world  can  make  to  the 
ultimate  social  and  pohtical  redemption  of  Russia,  is 


314    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  allow  her  unhampered  opportunity  to  heal  her 
economic  wounds,  and  to  offer  all  the  aid  possible  to 
this  process  of  healing.  Now  the  American  Demo- 
cracy^ which  has  professed  a  desire  to  help  rehabili- 
tate Russia,  is  in  a  particularly  fortunate  position 
to  extend  the  much  needed  aid  to  that  country. 
Owing  to  the  marvelous  productive  powers  of  Ameri- 
can industry,  America  can  supply  Russia  with 
necessary  equipment  for  her  struggle  toward  eco- 
nomic rejuvenation  more  amply  than  can  any  other 
industrial  nation.  Raiboad  rolling  stock,  agricul- 
tural machinery,  all  forms  of  steam,  gas  and  electri- 
cal apparatus,  printing  presses,  school  supplies,  and 
many  forms  of  machinery,  which  are  so  sadly  wanted 
in  Russia,  of  all  these  America  can  ship  immense  quan- 
tities. Furthermore,  America  has  the  trained  men  to 
help  direct  the  development  of  Russia's  incalculable 
natural  resources,  both  agricultural  and  industrial. 

But,  it  is  argued,  can  the  American  Democracy 
afford  to  extend  aid  to  Russia  as  long  as  the  Bolshe- 
viki  remain  in  power?  Is  not  Bolshevism  a  direct 
challenge  and  menace  to  American  institutions?  And 
if  so  would  not  the  extension  of  economic  help  to 
Russia  infuse  new  blood  and  new  vitality  into  the 
Bolshevist  movement,  and  thereby  enhance  its 
menace  to  existing  American  institutions?  It  is 
chiefly  these  considerations  that  have  deterred 
America  from  proffering  the  much  wanted  succor  to 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    315 

Russia,  and  that  may  continue  to  disturb  the  minds 
of  many  patriotic  Americans  if  trade  relations  are 
opened  with  a  Bolshevist  government. 

That  Bolshevism  is  a  challenge  to  American  as 
well  as  all  other  existing  political  and  social  institu- 
tions, the  most  diplomatic  Bolshevik  will  not  have 
the  temerity  to  deny.  The  institution  of  private 
property  the  Bolsheviki  would  annihilate.  The 
right  of  the  franchise  they  would  withhold  from 
those  employing  hired  help  and  from  ministers  of  the 
gospel,  who  are  not  engaged  in  some  other  form  of 
what  they  regard  as  socially  useful  work.  The 
accumulation  of  wealth  through  personal  effort, 
ability  and  thrift  they  would  prevent.  In  other 
words,  the  system  of  society  which  they  would  rear  is 
fundamentally  at  variance  with  the  one  the  average 
American  deems  most  suitable  for  human  existence. 

However,  a  challenge  is  one  thing,  a  menace  is 
quite  another.  A  challenge  becomes  a  menace  only 
when  it  cannot  be  countered.  To  suspect,  therefore, 
that  Bolshevism  is  a  menace  to  existing  American 
institutions,  is  to  imply  that  it  is  either  possessed  of 
some  occult  power  to  fascinate  us  into  a  blind  aban- 
donment of  oiu"  institutions,  to  our  own  detriment, 
or  else,  that  it  can  actually  solve  our  social  problem 
and  bring  the  greatest  amount  of  good  to  the  largest 
number  of  people,  more  felicitously  than  can  our 
established  order. 


316    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Now  to  imagine  that  Bolshevism  has  any  of  the 
above  occult  power  is,  of  course,  absurd,  and  if 
Bolshevism  possesses  the  virtue  to  promote  human 
progress  more  abundantly  than  American  institu- 
tions, or  than  any  other  institutions  any^-here  in  the 
world,  then  it  is  by  no  means  a  menace  but  a  bless- 
ing. And  if  Bolshevism  cannot  compete  with  our 
institutions  in  ministering  to  human  welfare,  if  it  has 
in  it  the  power  merely  to  degrade  and  debase,  then 
none  but  those  afflicted  with  a  grave  mental  aberra- 
tion would  ever  think  of  championing  it,  and  surely 
no  Anglo-Saxon,  or  one  reared  in  Anglo-Saxon  civil- 
ization, and  accustomed  to  appraise  ideas  in  terms  of 
practical  values,  would  ever  allow  it  to  supplant  the 
order  of  society  in  which  he  reposes  his  faith. 

Furthermore  even  in  Russia,  where  the  soil  has 
been  particularly  fertile  for  its  rise,  Bolshevism  has 
by  no  means  become  definitely  and  permanently 
entrenched.  Far  from  it.  It  is  face  to  face  with 
difficulties  which  the  most  sanguine  Bolshevik  will 
not  declare  that  it  can  surmount.  There  is  the 
individualism  of  the  peasant,  who  has  no  patience 
with  the  Bolshevist  principle  of  communism,  and  who 
stubbornly  insists  upon  individual  ownership  of 
land.  Then  there  is  the  problem  of  production.  Can 
communism  in  such  an  industrially  backward  country 
as  Russia  by  denying  the  reward  of  personal  gain  to 
the  talented  and  energetic,  turn  out  the  necessary 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    317 

amount  of  supplies  for  the  people?  And  if  so,  will 
it  be  able  to  withstand  the  fierce  competition  of  the 
highly  developed  industrial  nations,  that  is,  will  it  be 
able  to  produce  as  cheaply  and  efficiently  as  these 
nations?  It  may  be  urged  that  to  compete  success- 
fully with  foreign  producers,  the  Bolshevist  govern- 
ment will  initiate  a  high  protective  tariff.  But  would 
the  Russian  masses,  especially  the  peasantry,  assent 
to  a  scheme  that  would  make  it  necessary  for  them 
to  pay  higher  prices  for  commodities  to  their  own 
government,  than  to  the  foreign  seller,  which  would 
be  the  case  imder  a  high  protective  tariff?  Of 
course,  if  the  peasantry  were  to  remain  unorganized 
as  imder  the  old  regime,  they  might  not  be  in  a 
position  to  exert  pressure  upon  their  government  to 
abandon  a  policy  injurious  to  them  economically. 
But  the  peasantry  have  organized  themselves  in 
local,  regional  and  central  bodies,  which  are  bound 
to  gain  in  influence  as  time  passes,  and  they  will 
surely  oppose  innovations  inimical  to  their  material 
advance.  Besides,  there  are  the  other  political 
parties — the  Mensheviki,  the  Social-Revolution- 
aries, and  even  the  Cadets,  all  of  whom  are  opposed 
rather  strenuously  to  the  internal  policies  of  the 
Bolshevist  regime.  When  Russia  is  freed  from  the 
menace  of  foreign  intervention  and  counter-revolu- 
tion, a  menace  that  has  tended  to  paralyze  the  oppo- 
sition to  the  Bolshevist  government  of  all  elements 


318    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

who  believe  in  the  Revolution,  these  parties,  partic- 
ularly the  Mensheviki  and  the  Social-Revolution- 
aries, will  resume  their  active  antagonism,  which 
can  be  neutralized  only  by  compromising  with  their 
demands,  that  is,  by  sacrificing  a  serious  part  of  the 
Bolshevist  program. 

Can  Bolshevism  ultimately  triumph  over  these 
obstacles,  or  will  it  wreck  itself  in  the  effort  to  over- 
come them?  It  is  not  within  the  province  of  this 
book  to  answer  this  question.  It  would  require  a 
book  of  itself  to  make  a  searching  study  of  it.  For 
the  purpose  of  the  present  discussion  be  it  sufficient 
to  state,  that  with  Bolshevism  existing  mainly  in  an 
experimental  stage,  with  numerous  weighty  obstacles 
barring  its  path  to  triumph,  with  its  fundamental 
philosphy  at  extreme  variance  with  that  of  the  Ameri- 
can Democracy,  and  with  the  latter  determined  to  up- 
hold its  own  institutions  and  to  effect  its  social  ad- 
vance by  means  of  these  institutions  in  their  present 
or  in  a  desirably  modified  form — under  these  circum- 
stances it  is  hard  to  conceive  how  Bolshevism  con- 
stitutes a  menace  to  American  institutions. 

Then,  too,  extending  economic  aid  to  Russia  does 
not  necessarily  mean  bolstering  the  Bolshevist 
government.  It  simply  means  invigorating  Russia's 
economic  life,  without  which  there  can  be  no  prog- 
ress or  peace  in  that  stricken  country.  On  the 
contrary,  such  aid  will  only  put  Bolshevism  on  its 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    319 

mettle,  will  subject  its  theories  to  the  most  crucial 
test,  the  test  of  practicability,  and  if  they  fail  be- 
cause of  intrinsic  defectiveness,  it  will  mean  an  end 
to  Bolshevism  forever,  and  it  is  far  more  desirable 
that  Bolshevism  should  collapse  through  its  own  im- 
potence than  through  outside  pressure. 

To  repeat,  the  Russian  problem  is  essentially  an 
economic  problem.  The  political  crisis  can  be 
solved  only  through  the  solution  of  the  economic 
crisis.  Outside  influences,  of  course,  through  per- 
sistent pressure  and  concerted  effort,  may  succeed 
in  imposing  upon  Russia  a  certain  type  of  political 
edifice.  But  such  an  edifice  can  have  no  long  lease  of 
existence,  unless  those  in  control  of  it  immediately 
dispose  of  the  economic  crisis  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  masses.  Let  us  not  overlook  the  fact  that  the 
masses,  the  proletariat  as  well  as  the  peasant,  have 
during  the  period  of  the  Revolution  grown  conscious 
of  their  power,  and  have  learned  to  exercise  it  effec- 
tively. Nearly  every  village  and  town  has  been 
turned  to  a  smaller  or  larger  extent  into  an  armed 
camp,  and  the  peasant  and  proletariat  will  sooner  or 
later  surely  use  their  power  against  an  imposed 
government,  if  it  should  not  in  their  judgment 
comply  with  their  demands  for  economic  reconstruc- 
tion. If  it  is  argued  that  what  the  Allied  policy  has 
been  seeking  is  to  settle  the  economic  problem  of 
Russia,  then  obviously  it  is  a  waste  of  wealth  and 


320    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

energy  and  human  life  to  strive  to  impose  a  certain 
type  of  state  organization  as  a  condition  prerequisite 
to  the  proper  disposition  of  the  economic  difficulties. 
The  mere  effort  at  such  an  imposition  not  only 
aggravates  the  economic  crisis,  making  it  more 
difficult  of  ultimate  solution,  but  also  provokes 
dangerous  irritation  within  and  without  Russia. 
The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Council  to  Uft  the 
blockade  on  Russia  is  a  token  of  the  defeat  of  the 
original  Allied  policy  toward  the  Revolution. 

"But,"  it  may  be  argued,  "Russia  is  essentially 
a  peasant  country.  The  peasant  is  ignorant.  He  has 
had  scarcely  any  political  experience.  Is  he  capable 
of  self-government?  Is  it  not  advisable  for  outside 
forces  to  help  guide  him  poUtically,  imtil  he  has 
learned  to  govern  himself?" 

In  reply  it  must  be  stated  that  outside  poUtical 
guidance  is  not  in  itself  objectionable  and  the  peasant 
is  not  averse  to  accepting  it,  provided  it  leads  him  to 
his  chosen  goal — economic  self-sufficiency.  Sugges- 
tions, plans,  programs,  when  presented  to  him  in  a 
manner  that  elicits  confidence  and  in  proper  form, 
that  is,  in  terms  that  he  can  understand,  he  follows, 
provided  they  coincide  with  his  aspirations.  But  he 
manifestly  will  resist  compulsory  guidance  to  the 
utmost  of  his  ability,  whether  it  comes  from  within 
or  without  Russia.  We  shall  only  delay  the  ultimate 
political  adjustments  of  Russia,  if  we  should  seek  to 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    321 

effect  it  forcibly  under  some  pretext  or  other.  It 
cannot  be  too  vigorously  emphasized  that  the  Rus- 
sian state  must  evolve  out  of  Russian  realities,  as  the 
Russians  themselves  understand  and  interpret  them. 
It  must  draw  its  sustenance  and  strength  from  its  own 
native  soil,  if  it  is  at  all  to  endure. 

As  to  the  ignorance  of  the  peasant,  that  is  a  serious 
problem.  More  than  anything  else  ddes  Russia  need 
schools  to  wipe  out  her  immense  iUiteracy,  and  thus 
to  help  elevate  the  peasant  to  a  higher  cultural 
plane.  But  in  his  own  way  the  peasant  is  quite  in- 
telligent. Of  practical  things  especially  has  he  dis- 
played a  marvelous  understanding.  And  what  better 
proof  is  needed  to  substantiate  this  assertion  than 
the  existence  of  a  nation-wide  chain  of  cooperatives 
of  various  forms,  managed  to  an  appreciable  extent 
by  peasants  and  with  such  unprecedented  success? 
And  were  further  proof  needed  one  could  point  to  the 
division  of  millions  of  acres  of  land  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  Russia  during  the  last  two 
years,  in  the  midst  of  a  mighty  Revolution,  and  with 
comparatively  little  bloodshed  and  disorder.  And  if 
the  peasant  has  been  capable  of  building  up  a  won- 
drous network  of  cooperatives  and  to  run  them  suc- 
cessfully, and  of  carrying  out  in  comparative  peace, 
though  still  inadequately,  the  distribution  of  millions 
of  acres  of  land,  why  will  he  not  be  able  to  help  erect 
a  stable  state  organization?    It  will  take  time,  of 


322    THE  RUSSIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

course,  and  he  will  commit  innumerable  errors,  but 
he  has  had  enough  experience  in  social  effort  to 
warrant  the  assumption  that  he  can  without  the 
compulsory  guidance  of  insiders  or  outsiders,  grope 
his  way  intelligently  toward  his  own  political  re- 
demption. Moreover,  it  should  be  remembered  that 
the  peasant  is  essentially  democratic.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  expatiate  on  a  subject  which  has  been 
written  about  so  much  in  Russian  and  foreign 
literature.  Be  it  sufficient  to  point  to  the  fact  that 
only  a  people  at  heart  democratic  could  initiate 
universal  suffrage  for  men  and  women,  as  was  done 
in  Russia,  when  the  Czar  was  overthrown. 

Those,  however,  who  are  skeptical  of  the  capacities 
of  the  Russian  peasant,  and  who  for  some  reason  or 
other  are  disappointed  with  the  Russian  Revolution, 
and  nurture  dark  misgivings  as  to  its  future  course 
and  ultimate  outcome,  would  do  well  to  ponder  over 
the  following  words,  uttered  almost  a  century  ago  by 
Thomas  Babington  Macaulay: 

''The  final  and  permanent  fruits  of  hberty  are 
wisdom,  moderation  and  mercy.  Its  immediate 
effects  are  often  atrocious  crimes,  conflicting  errors, 
skepticism  on  points  the 'most  clear,  dogmatism  on 
points  the  most  mysterious.  It  is  just  at  this  crisis 
that  its  enemies  love  to  exhibit  it.  They  pull  down 
the  scaffolding  from  the  half-finished  edifice;  they 
point  to  the  flying  dust,  the  falling  bricks,  the  com- 


BOLSHEVISM,  DEMOCRACY,  AND  THE  PEASANT    323 

fortless  rooms,  the  frightful  irregularity  of  the  whole 
appearance,  and  then  ask  in  scorn  where  the  prom- 
ised splendor  and  comfort  are  to  be  found.  If  such 
miserable  sophisms  were  to  prevail,  there  would  never 
be  a  good  house  or  a  good  government  in  the  world. 
There  is  only  one  cm-e  for  the  evils  which  newly- 
acquired  freedom  produces;  and  the  ciure  is  freedom. 
When  a  prisoner  first  leaves  his  cell,  he  cannot  bear 
the  light  of  day;  he  is  unable  to  discriminate  colors  or 
recognize  faces.  But  the  remedy  is  not  to  remand 
him  into  the  dungeon,  but  to  accustom  him  to  the 
rays  of  the  sun.  The  blaze  of  truth  and  Uberty  may 
at  first  dazzle  and  bewilder  nations  which  have 
become  half-blind  in  the  house  of  bondage.  But  let 
them  gaze  on  and  they  will  soon  be  able  to  bear  it. 
In  a  few  years  men  learn  to  reason.  The  extreme 
violence  of  opinions  subsides.  Hostile  theories 
correct  each  other.  The  scattered  elements  of  truth 
cease  to  contend  and  begin  to  coalesce,  and  at  last  a 
system  of  justice  and  order  is  educed  of  the  chaos. 

"Many  politicians  of  our  time  are  in  the  habit  of 
laying  it  down  as  a  self-evident  proposition  that  no 
people  ought  to  be  free,  till  they  are  fit  to  use  their 
freedom.  The  maxim  is  worthy  of  the  fool  in  the  old 
story,  who  resolved  not  to  go  into  water  until  he 
learned  to  swim.  If  men  are  to  wait  for  liberty  till 
they  become  wise  and  good  in  slavery  they  may, 
indeed,  wait  forever." 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Avilov,  B.,  Nastoyashtcheye  i  Bvdushtcheye  Narodnavo  Khosi- 

aystva  v  Rossii. 
Bernatzky,  M.  V.,  K  Agramomu  Voprosu. 
Blank,  Simon,  Landarbeitersverhaltnisse  in  Russland. 
Boshko,  V.  I.,  K  Agramomu  Voprosu  v  Rossii. 
Brutzkus,  B.  D.,  Obobshtchest  v  lenie  Zemli  i  Agrarnaya  Reforma. 
Bublikov,  A.  A.,  Russkaya  Revolutsia. 
Bubnov,  J.  v.,  The  Cooperative  Movement  in  Russia. 
Bykhovsky,  N.  Y.,  Russkaya  Obshtchina. 
Charkolussky,  V.  S.,  Yezhegodnick  Narodnoy  Shkoly,  1908. 
Chekhov,  N.  V.,  Narodnoye  Obrazovaniye  v  Rossii. 
Chernov,  Victor,  K  Teorii  o  Klassovoy  Borbe. 

Tipy  Kapitalisticheskoy  i  Agrarnoy  Evolutzii. 

Marx  i  Engels  o  Krestyanstve. 
Chernyshevsky,  N.,  Statyi  po  Krestyanskomu  Voprosu. 
Derevensky,  S.,  ChtoGovoriat  pro  Zemlu  Sotsialisty  Revolutsion- 

ery? 
Dillon,  E.  J.,  The  Eclipse  of  Russia. 
Pinn-Yenotayevsky,  Sovremennoye  Khodaystvo  v  Rossii. 
Goremykin,  M.  I.,  Agramy  Vopros  v  Rossii. 
Haxthausen,  A.  A.,  Die  Ldndliche  Verfassung  Russlands. 

Studien  uber  die  inneren  Zustande,  das  Volksleben  und  insbe- 
sondere  die  landlishen  Einrichtungen  Russlands,  3  vols. 
Hourwich,  I.  A.,  The  Economics  of  the  Russian  Village. 
Irisov,  Kooperatzia  v  Tekusthtchii  Moment. 
Ivanov-Rasumnik,  Istoria  Russkoy  Obshtchestvennoy  Mysli. 
Kabardin,  N.,  0  Russkikh  Nuzhdakh. 
Kautsky,  Karl,  Agramy  Vopros. 

Agramy  Vopros  v  Rossii. 
Kachorovsky,  K.  R.,  Narodnoye  Pram, 

Russkaya  Obshtchina. 

Editor  of  Borba  za  Zemlu. 


326  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Katzenellenbaum,  Z.  C,  Finansovaya  Storona  Agrarnoy  Re- 

formy. 
Kluchevsky,  V.  D.,  Istoria  Soslovy  v  Rossii. 

Kurs  Ru^skoy  Istorii,  4  vols. 
Kulchitsky,  L.,  Istoria  Russkavo  Revolutsionnavo  Dvizheniya. 
Kornilov,  Alexander,  Modern  Russian  History. 

Partiya  Narodnoy  Svobody. 
Kostomarov,  N.,  Bunt  Stenki  Razina. 
Kovalevsky,  Maxim,  Russian  Political  Institutions. 
Lenine,  N.,  Agrarnaya  Programma  Sotsiat-Demokratii  v  Pervoy 
Russkoy  Revolvisii. 
Chto  Dyelat? 
Gosudarstvo  i  Revolutzia. 
K  Derevenskoy  Bednosti. 
Leontyev,  A.,  Krestyanksoye  Pravo,  evo  sodei'zhaniye  i  ohyem. 
Lipping,   Karl  J.,  DieEpochen  der  russischen   Agrargeshichte 
und  Agrarpolitick  von  der  dltesten  Zeit  bis  zur  Gegen- 
wart. 
Lossitzky,  A.,  Krestyanksoye  Pravo  i  Obshlchina  pred  Gosvdar- 

stvennoy  Dumoy. 
Lurye,  N.,  Krestyansky  Vopros  i  Sotsial  Demokratia. 
Martov,  L.,  Obstchestvennoye  Dvizhenyie  v  Rossii,  4  vols. 
Masaryk,  T.  G.,  Zur  russischen  Geschichts  und  Religionsphilos- 

ophic,  2  vols. 
Maslov,  Pyotr,  Agrarny  Vopros  v  Rossii,  2  vols. 
Teoriya  Razvitiya  Nardonavo  Khosiaystva. 
Usioviya  Razvitiya  Selskavo  Khosiaystva  v  Rossii. 
Razvitiye  Narodnavo  Khosiaystva  i  Agrarnaya  Programma. 
Mavor,  Jams,  An  Economic  History  of  Russia,  2  vols. 
Melnick,  Josef,  Russen  iiber  Ru^sland. 
Migulin,  P.  P.,  Agrarny  Vopros. 

Milyukov  Pavel,  N.,  Ocherki  po  Istorii  Russkoy  Kultury,  vols.  1 
and  2. 
Russia  and  its  Social  Crisis. 
God  Borby. 
Milyutin,  V.  P. ,  Rahotchi  Vopros  v  Selskom  Khosiaystve  Rossii. 

Selsko-  Khosiaystvennyie  Rabotchiye  i  Voyna. 
Orlov,  A.  S.,   Kooperatziya  v  Rossii  Nakanunye  i  vo  Vremya 
Voyny. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  327 

Oganovsky,  N.  P.,  Individiializatzia  Zemlyedeliya  v  Rossii  i  eya 
Poslyedstviya. 

Revoluitsia  Naooborot. 

S  Nebes  na  Zemlu. 
'On,  N.,  Odm'ki  nashevo  poreformennavo  obshtshestvennavo  Khosi- 

aystva. 
Preyer,  W.  D.,  Die  Russische  Agrarreform. 
Prokopovitch,  Kooperatn>noye  Dvizehnye. 
Plekhanov,  G.  V.,  Nashi  Raznoglasiya. 

Kritika  Nashikh  Kritikov. 
Shanin,  M.,  Munitsipalizatsia  Hi  Rasdelye  v  Sobstvennostf 
Struve,  P.  B.,   Kriticheskiya  Zametki  k  Voprosu  ob  Ekonomit- 

cheskom  Razvitii  Rossii. 
Sukhanov,  N. ,  Zemelnaya  Renla  i  Osnovy  Semelnavo  Oblozheniya. 
Stepniack,  TJie  Russian  Peasantry. 
Totomyanetz,  V.  F.,  Formy  Agrarnavo  Dvizehniya. 
Tugan-Baranovsky,  Natzionalizatsia  Zemli. 

Russkaya  Fabrika  v  Proshlom  i  Nastoyshtchem. 
Thun,  A.,  Geshichte  der  Revolutzioner-Bewegung  in  Russland. 
Valentinov,  N.  V.,  Revolutzia  i  Agrarnaya  Programma  Sotsialis- 

tov-Revolutzionerov. 
Vozzhmukhin,  I.,  Agrarny  Vopros  v  Tsifrakh  iFaktakh. 
Yzgoyev,  Russkoye  Obshtcnedvo  i  Revolutsia. 

Nashi  Politcheskiya  Partii. 
Yezhegodnick  Qazety  Rech  1914-1915. 

In  addition  to  the  above  list  of  references  the  writer  has  made 
use  of  the  numerous  articles  on  the  peasantry  of  Russia,  which 
have  appeared  in  the  leading  Russian  magazines,  such  as  Russ- 
kaya Mysl,  Russkaya  Starina,  Russkoye  Bogatstvo,  Vestnik  Yev- 
ropy,  Soiremenny  Mir,  Letopis,  and  also  of  the  various  reports 
of  the  Department  of  Agi-iculture,  Zemstvo  commissions,  League 
of  Agrarian  Reforms,  and  of  the  stenographic  accounts  of  the 
discussions  of  the  agrarian  problems  in  the  first  and  second 
Dumas. 


bCl^ 


3ff»Jl 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


2/92  Senes  9482 


\ 


AKvijan  3Hi  e 


3  1205  01431  2894 


\ 


X 


/ 


